"Of course not!"
"Then make real sure I do the heavy lifting when Luke isn't around or he'll have my butt for a saddle blanket. He was very particular about not having you wrestle with gallons of boiling stuff."
The realization that Luke had told Ten to help her made emotions shiver invisibly through Carla.
"Thank you," she said huskily. "I have to admit I've been thinking of rigging a block and tackle for the stove."
Ten smiled as he set the pot full of stew on the worn counter. "Smells like heaven."
She gave him a sideways look. "I'd have guessed you were more familiar with unheavenly smells."
He laughed and began filling two huge serving dishes with stew, using a ladle the size of a soup plate. Smiling, Carla turned back to her other dinner preparations, grateful for Ten's quiet help … and at the same time unable to keep from wishing that it were Luke's hands lifting the heavy pots, Luke's arms flexing with casual strength, Luke's broad shoulders making the kitchen seem small.
"Is Luke coming in for dinner?" Carla asked two seconds after telling herself she wouldn't.
"Nope."
"Is he … camping again?"
"Not this time. Some fool cow took a notion to tangle with barbed wire. Luke will walk her to the barn after he sews her up a bit." Ten looked up at the clock. "Be a few hours yet."
"Ladle some of that into the small pot, would you?" Carla asked. "I'll keep it warm for him."
"You're spoiling him shamefully."
She shrugged. "Just doing my job."
"None of the other cooks ever kept food warm for the man who worked through dinner."
"From what I've heard, none of them cooked anything worth keeping warm," Carla said dryly.
Ten bent over the ladle and inhaled. "Damn, but that smells really fine. What's in it?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Sure I would."
"The usual things, plus bourbon and juniper berries.
Ten blinked. He sniffed again. "Juniper berries?"
"Think of them as Rocking M peppercorns."
"You think of them. I'm going to eat before you tell me something I don't want to know."
Cosy's voice called plaintively from the next room. "Hey, ramrod, you planning on sharing any of that with the men what do the real work or are you going to keep it all for yourself?"
"Don't get your water hot," Ten retorted. "If we fed you on the basis of work, you'd have starved to death long before now."
Carla just managed to remove the smile from her face before she walked into the dining room carrying a tray of steaming biscuits and a pot of dark mountain honey. Ten followed with the big bowls of stew. The food vanished shortly after it was put on the table.
The speed with which Carla's cooking disappeared no longer appalled her, for she had become accustomed to thinking in terms of feeding men who routinely burned three and four thousand calories a day. During roundup, branding, calving and other seasonally demanding kinds of work, the men would work sixteen-hour days, during which they would eat a minimum of four big meals and all the "snacks" they could cram into their pockets, saddlebags or the glove compartments of their pickup trucks.
Before Carla sat down to eat, she went back to the kitchen with the stew bowls, filling them again from the much-reduced volume of the cooking pot. After bringing the new bowls of stew, plus coffee refills, two more trays of biscuits and a new pot of honey, she sat down and ate her own dinner.
She didn't lack for company; the men who weren't polishing off second helpings were working their way through a third plate. By the time she had eaten her first – and only – serving, the men were through eating. It was the part of the meal Carla enjoyed most, for the full, satisfied men tended to sharpen their wits on one another while she brought in dessert.
Sometimes it was Carla who came in for her share of ribbing, but she enjoyed even that. It reminded her of the good-natured give-and-take she and Cash shared – and Luke, too, until that disastrous summer.
"What's this I hear about you running off tomorrow and leaving us to starve?" Cosy asked as he mopped up the last of the savory gravy with a biscuit.
"True," Carla said cheerfully. "I've saved up some days off."
"And you're going to run off to the city and never think of the brokenhearted boys you left behind."
"Actually," Carla said, standing up and gathering dirty plates, "I'm running off to September Canyon."
"Same difference," mumbled Cosy.
"It is?"
"Sure. We'll starve just the same."
"You can live off the fat of the land," Ten pointed out to Cosy.
"Speak for yourself, boy. I'm trim as a rattlesnake and twice as mean."
"Three times as ugly, too," called Jones from the end of the table. As the other men laughed, Jones kicked back and lit up a cigarette, sending a streamer of smoke across the table. "But that's still one hardhearted woman," he added, gesturing toward Carla with a burned match. "Leaving us to starve and not turning a hair over it."
"Hate to disappoint you boys," Carla said, pausing in the doorway with her arms loaded with dishes, "but I doubled up on everything I made this week and froze half. You won't starve."
Shaking his head, Jones rocked back from the table and blew out another stream of smoke. When Carla returned and began passing out dessert, Jones watched her closely and said as though no time had passed, "It's not the same a'tall. Nothing's as good as fresh." He gave Carla a thorough, up-and-down look and took another drag on his cigarette.
"’Course, I might forgive you if you gave me a big kiss before you leave."
"Nope," Carla said instantly, hearing Ten's chair creak as he turned toward the brash young hand.
"You sure about that?" Jones asked, blowing out smoke again, looking at her with open appraisal. "Bet I could change your mind, little darling."
"Not a chance. Nothing personal, but kissing you would be like licking an ashtray."
The men laughed loudly. After a moment, Jones shook his head and laughed, too. Ten's smile flickered very briefly, but there was a look in his eyes that told Carla a ranch hand called Jones would be hearing the rough edge of his ramrod's tongue. And, she admitted to herself, it might be just as well; during the past few weeks she had become increasingly aware of Jones. Of all the hands, he was the only one she took care not to be alone with. It was nothing he had said or done; she simply didn't like the way he looked at her.
Ten lingered while, one by one, the other men finished dessert. The hands had taken to carrying their dirty dishes into the kitchen after a meal, which saved Carla a lot of running back and forth. There was usually some more good-humored joking as the hands grabbed a final cup of coffee before going to the bunkhouse for a night of cards, TV, VCR movies or a few rounds on the battered old pool table.
Ten rolled up his sleeves and began scraping dishes. While he did it, he kept an eye on the men who came and went from the kitchen. Especially Jones. The hands sensed their ramrod's displeasure. No one lingered tonight. They carried in dishes, grabbed a cup of coffee, and vanished.
Carla waited until everyone had left before she turned to Ten and said neutrally, "The way you're snarling, not one of those hands is going to so much as say good-night to me from now on."
Ten smiled slowly. "The men understand. They can go so far and no farther."
"Fine," Carla said, irritated by the feeling of being protected beyond any reasonable need. "But what would happen if I wanted to get to know one of the men better?"
For an instant there was silence. Then, "Do you?"
She threw up her hands. "That's not the point."
"Sure it is."
"But—"
"Think of it this way," Ten said, interrupting calmly. "If you did want to get to know one of the hands better, you'd be doing him a real favor if you left the Rocking M and took him with you. Otherwise, he'd be a mighty sorry puppy about the time Luke turned up and started hammering out postholes with him. You don't want some nice, stupid boy on your conscience, do you?"
"Is it so awful just to want to have fun with somebody?"
"Try Luke."
"I'd love to," Carla shot back. Hearing the stark emotion in her own voice made her wince. "Never mind, Ten. Guess I'm just—" she shrugged "—ragged. I'm looking forward to my time off."
"Yeah, I'll bet cooking for this bunch of wolves can get real wearing."
She shook her head. "Cooking, no. Cleaning? Amen."
The outside door to the kitchen slammed behind Luke. "Then stick with cooking, schoolgirl. We're not having a fancy dress ball or white glove inspection here anytime soon," he said, tossing his hat onto the counter. "If you wax the closet floor once more I'll break my neck reaching for shirts." He threw Ten a cool look. "Working late?"
"Just following orders."
Luke went wholly still. "Who's crowding her?"
"Jones," Ten said.
"No," Carla said quickly. "It's not like that. He hasn't done anything."
Luke looked at Ten.
The ramrod shook his head, disagreeing with Carla.
Luke nodded abruptly and said to Ten, "I'll draw his pay. Have him off the Rocking M by noon tomorrow."
"Luke," Carla said urgently, "you can't fire a ranch hand just because he made a joke about kissing me."
"Like hell I can't." He glared down at Carla with narrow golden eyes. "Jones has a bad reputation with women."
"So does Ten, according to you," Carla pointed out tightly.
"Not like Jones. Ten never took anything that wasn't offered. Jones did, and maybe more than once. He got off easy because the gal wasn't exactly a virgin to begin with, but that doesn't change what happened. Even a prostitute has the right to say no to a man."
Carla started to speak but was too shocked.
"I hired Jones because there aren't any women on the Rocking M and he's a top hand when he isn't drinking and trying to prove he's God's gift to girls. Then you came here. Jones swore to me he wouldn't drink and he wouldn't so much as look at you. I haven't caught him looking, but I'm not so sure about the booze."
Luke glanced at Ten, who nodded.
"Thought I smelled it on him yesterday in the pasture," Luke muttered, rubbing his neck angrily. "Damn it to
hell
. Tell Cosy to drive Jones into West Fork tonight. Tell Jones not to come back. Ever."
"He'll want to hear it from you," Ten said.
"You really think he's that stupid?" Luke asked hopefully, watching Ten with the eyes of a cougar.
The ramrod's smile was slow and savage. "Probably not. Too bad. You've been spoiling for a fight. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy than Jones."
"Yeah. I should have fired that SOB the second I knew Carla was coming here. Females and the Rocking M. Nothing but trouble."
"And good cooking," Ten added. "Don't forget that. Carla's got more of those chocolate chip cookies you favor stashed in the freezer. Nothing like a good woman to spoil a man, is there?"
"While it lasts, no. But when she's gone – and she always goes – it just makes the hard times harder."
~10~
The kitchen door snapped shut behind Ten, leaving Carla and Luke alone in the taut silence. Silently she watched while Luke went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves and began washing up. He rinsed dust off his face, soaped all the way up his muscular forearms to his elbows and used a nailbrush on his hands. That was one of the things Carla had always noticed about Luke; no matter how hard he had worked or how tired he was, he always came to her table with clean hands.
And such handsome hands they were, almost elegant despite their large size. Long, lean fingers and neatly trimmed nails. A hand deft enough to pick a tiny flower without bruising it and strong enough to lift a saddle one-handed and lower it onto a cow pony's back. Luke's hands fascinated her. Warm, hard, capable of trembling with desire and yet still touching her with restraint, sensitive enough to measure and savor all the textures of her breasts, caressing her nipples from softness to velvet pebbles.
"Did I miss some dirt?"
Carla's head snapped up to meet Luke's eyes. "What?"
"You were staring at my hands."
"I…" Carla's voice died. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the exquisite torture of looking at Luke's hands any longer and remembering how it had felt to be touched by him, if only for a few moments. "I'll see if your dinner is still warm."
"You mean the wolves left some scraps for me?"
"I stood over the stew with a shotgun."
He smiled. "Did you eat?"
"A little."
He hesitated, then said slowly, as though against his better judgment, "Keep me company and I'll help you finish off the dishes."
"Sold," Carla said instantly. Her blue-green eyes appreciated Luke's smile and noted the signs of a long day's work in his face. "But you don't have to do my job, too. You look like you've been working so hard that you're too tired to sleep properly."
Luke's eyes narrowed. He wondered if Carla had heard him prowling the kitchen for the past three nights. When he was awake he could banish the memory of her body pressed to his, but when he slept, it was different. In his dreams he sat half-clothed in the dining room and she came to him, laughter and sunshine and sensual heat that bathed him in passion until he cried out; and then he awakened alone, sweating, his breath a tearing sound in the darkness.
"Sit down," Carla said. "I'll bring dinner to you. You must be starved."
Luke barely kept himself from saying he would rather have Carla than any dinner on earth; and he would rather have her in the dining room, sitting astride his lap, her head thrown back, her nipples taut and glistening from his mouth, her body sheathing him, bringing him relief from the torment of wanting her.
"Whatever you give me always tastes good," Luke said finally, trying not to watch Carla's mouth too hungrily.
The look in his golden eyes made her breath catch. A delicate, invisible shiver went from her breastbone to the pit of her stomach.