"That's...your room?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't notice the odd little break in her voice.
**Uh-huh." He nodded, his eyes going over her in a look reminiscent of the one the big bad wolf must have given Little Red Riding Hood right before gulping her down, red cape and all. "If you need anything, just give a whistle."
The offer might have been tongue-in-cheek but the look in his eyes said he wouldn't have any objection if she took him up on it.
"I, ah, doubt Fll need anything." Her voice shook and she swallowed to steady it. "Good night."
•'Goodnight."
How was it possible for him to send shivers down her spine with even the most prosaic of words? she wondered despairingly. Megan felt those green eyes watching her as she pushed open her door.
She couldn't resist the urge to glance at him as she stepped into her room. Their eyes met for an instant and she thought it was almost possible to see the electricity that arced between them.
And then she shut the door and leaned against it, her knees as weak as if she'd just climbed twenty flights of stairs.
Chapter 4
JAj&l had heard it said that you should never marry someone until you'd seen them first thing in the morning, before they'd had their first cup of coffee. He understood the thinking. If you woke up slowly, it would be wise to know if you were about to make a lifetime commitment to someone who bounded from bed singing the joys of the day.
Colleen had been known to threaten dismemberment for anyone foolish enough to smile at her before she'd been up at least an hour. His ex-wife had rarely left their bed much before noon, only one of many ways in which she'd failed to make the adjustment to ranch hfe.
Ranching tended to make a morning person out of even the most confirmed night owl. There was simply too much to be done to allow precious daylight hours to sUp by. Getting up at dawn was normal for him, but
he hadn't expected his new housekeeper to do the same.
Kel was mixing eggs and milk into a bowl of pancake mix when Megan entered the kitchen. He looked up, his first reaction surprise, his second the surge of hunger that was rapidly becoming familiar. It was the first time he'd seen her with her hair loose. She'd caught it back from her face with a pair of tortoise-shell combs and then let it fall in pale gold waves to just below her shoulders. He had the immediate urge to slide his fingers through it, to see if it was as soft as it looked.
"Good morning." A faint, sleepy huskiness lingered in her voice.
**'Morning. There's coffee," he added, nodding to the coffeemaker.
**Is there a horse in it?" she asked.
**A horse?" His eyebrows climbed in question. Then he remembered their first conversation about how strong Westerners liked their coffee. He grinned. "Barely strong enough to float a small horseshoe," he told her.
"Not much reassurance." But she took a cup from the wooden cup rack that sat beside the coffeemaker. Megan's delicate shudder as she sipped the thick black brew made Kel's smile widen.
"This tastes like there's a horse actually in it," she muttered.
"Cream in the fridge," he suggested as he finished stirring the pancake batter. "You want some pancakes?"
"I'm supposed to be the one cooking for you," Megan said as she took the carton of cream from the refrigerator.
"Not breakfast." He flicked water onto the big cast-iron griddle that rested across two of the stove's burners. The droplets sizzled and bounced, vanishing in a heartbeat. "There's plenty of batter."
"Okay. I usually make do with toast and tea. I haven't had pancakes in ages." He was aware of her watching him as he used a measuring cup to dip batter onto the hot griddle.
"Ranch breakfasts tend to be on the hearty side," he said, nodding his head to where half a dozen sausages sizzled on another burner. "It's a long time between now and lunch."
"Colleen said you couldn't cook," Megan commented, watching as he flipped the pancakes at just the right moment.
"I can't. But Aunt Jemima does a fine job." He nodded to the box. "And frying a sausage doesn't take much skill. But you don't want to see what I can do to an egg."
"Bad?"
"Criminal."
"I've been known to fry a respectable ^g," she said, her eyes smiling at him over the rim of her coffee cup. "How about tomorrow morning I return the favor and cook you breakfast?"
"That's not part of your job," he reminded her.
"But since this is a trial week, I should do my best to impress, don't you think?"
If she only knew! She'd already made quite an impression, he thought as she turned to get out a plate and silverware for herself. Kel found his eyes drifting over her slender curves. She was wearing a plain cotton shirt the exact color of raspberry sherbet. It was tucked into a pair of softly worn jeans and he wanted nothing more than to put his hands around her waist and pull her close to him.
**Is something burning?" Megan turned, plate in hand, her short straight nose wrinkled, her eyes questioning.
**Damn!" Kel turned and began quickly scooping the pancakes off the griddle. The undersides were considerably beyond done. Irritated with himself, he stacked them on a plate to be thrown out. "Good thing I made plenty of batter," he muttered.
/// could just keep my mind on the pancakes and off Megan Roarke, I'd be doing all right.
The rest of the pancakes turned out golden brown and perfect. Since Kel watched them as carefully as a chef hovering over a pan of hoUandaise sauce, they didn't have a chance to do otherwise. Megan poured juice for both of them, adding, at his request, a tall glass of milk for Kel. She tried not to think of what a perfect domestic picture they would have presented to anyone who happened to be watching.
She asked Kel what kind of work he'd be doing that day, and as she Ustened to him talk about moving cattle on to smnmer range, she thought how nice it would be to have a home of her own and a man of her own to sit across the table from. To talk about what the day
would hold, to make plans for the future with, to dream with.
She'd had the dream since she was a child, and it didn't take a therapist to tell her that it was at least partially a reaction to the circumstances of her own childhood. She'd never known anything remotely approaching the kind of idyllic family life in her fantasy.
When they'd finished eating, she insisted that she'd do the cleanup. Kel, with a glance out the window to where the pale light of dawn was giving way to golden sunshine, agreed. He'd already lingered longer over the meal than he normally did.
"Breakfast tomorrow is my treat," Megan reminded him as she stacked their plates and carried them to the counter.
"Right." Just looking at her across a breakfast table was a treat, he thought, his eyes drifting over her. In that raspberry-colored shirt, with her pale hair curling onto her shoulders, she looked downright edible. He supposed it was a Uttle too eariy in their relationship for him to suggest that she forget the bacon and eggs and offer herself as a main course.
Kel turned away before the urge to suggest just that became overwhelming.
Megan leaned against the counter to watch Kel stride across the packed dirt of the ranch yard. It ought to be illegal for a man to be that attractive, especially first thing in the morning before she'd had a chance to get her defenses in order. Not that she was sure there was any defense. How did she go about
convincing her pulse not to beat double time whenever she saw him?
Kel disappeared into the bam and she turned away from the window with a sigh. She was here to take care of his house, not to fall in love with the man. She only hoped her heart didn't forget that.
Her first full day on the Lazy B set the pattern for the week that followed. After breakfast, she tidied the kitchen, decided what to make for lunch and dinner, then went to work on the rest of the house. The house was large but not difficult to care for and she had plenty of free time.
She and Colleen shared lunch and then spent most of the afternoon together. Megan sensed a loneliness in the girl and suspected it might be a recent development. She couldn't quite imagine such a bright, pretty young woman not having plenty of friends. Perhaps, after the accident that had injured her leg. Colleen had withdrawn. An understandable reaction, particularly for a nineteen-year-old.
Whatever the cause of her loneliness, it was a feeling to which Megan could easily relate. Shy, introverted bookworms made few friends, and it had always been so much easier to lose herself in a book than to risk the almost inevitable rejection she'd get from other, more active children—children whose parents actually wanted them.
Gun joined the Bryans for dinner each night, and the tension between him and Colleen remained the same as it had been that first night. Megan wondered at its source but didn't feel as if she knew Colleen well
■■;
enough yet to probe for answers. If Kel let her stay past this trial week...
If she didn't have the good sense to leave on her own before she risked a broken heart...
Two big ifs, she thought ruefully as the end of the trial week neared. She liked it here, liked the work, liked the quiet, Uked the sense of family that lingered in the big house.
And liked Kel Bryan more than was wise.
There was a danger in that. She could end up hurt if she stayed. But she knew that, if he asked her, she wouldn't be able to say no.
At the end of the agreed-upon trial period, Kel sat in his study waiting for Megan to join him when she was done tidying up after dinner. When he'd said he'd like to talk with her, she'd given him a wary look before murmuring her agreement. Colleen had given Megan an encouraging look and thrown a warning glance in his direction. He'd already had an earful from his little sister, who seemed to think Megan's continued presence was a foregone conclusion.
Gun, who knew all about the trial period, had given Megan a discreet thumbs-up as he left. The memory made Kel frown. His friend's easy charm had never bothered him before, but he found it irritating when that charm was directed toward Megan. The feeling came perilously close to jealousy, which should be reason enough for him to give her a check and send her on her way.
Kel frowned at the brightly lit computer screen. He was supposedly updating records on some breeding
experiments he was running, but his mind kept wandering. In a few minutes, Megan was going to walk in here, expecting him to tell her whether or not she had a job for the summer.
By all reasonable criteria, there could be only one answer. She'd proven herself more than capable of the job. The house was clean enough to pass even Grace Cavenaugh's critical eye, and when it came to cooking, Megan's style was a httle more exotic than Grade's, but if he had a complaint, it was that he was eating too much.
And she'd been good for Colleen. His little sister was happier than she'd been since the accident. She'd been downright insistent that Megan stay on, which was more interest than she'd shown in anything else these past few months. That fact alone ought to be enough to insure Megan the job.
So why was he hesitating?
The cursor seemed to be blinking faster, as if impatient with his inaction. With a muttered curse, Kel exited the program and turned the computer off. In the resulting silence, he could hear the steady ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel. It sounded as impatient with his indecision as the cursor had been. She's perfect for the job. And she was the only applicant. If you let her go, you *re going to be back to frozen dinners, burned steaks and dirty clothes.
Yeah, but maybe he'd be able to go to sleep at night without staring at the ceiUng while his imagination presented an endless series of pictures as to what Megan might—or might not—be wearing to bed.
Thoughts that had done little to ensure him a decent night's sleep.
So let her stay and let what happens happen.
As if he didn't know exactly what would happen. Restless, he stood up and moved to the window. Pulling aside the coffee-colored drapes, Kel stared out into the darkness.
If Megan Roarke stayed, they were going to end up in bed together.
He'd be lying to himself if he pretended otherwise. And she'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit the same. The awareness between them was too strong to be ignored. It was there whenever they were together. She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes, those wide blue-gray eyes that were starting to haunt a great deal more of his thoughts than he liked.
So what if you sleep with her? You're both adults. There's nothing wrong with an affair. It would be no different from sleeping with Carla.
Except that he'd already spent more time thinking about Megan in the week since they'd met than he'd spent thinking of Carla in the three years he'd been seeing her. That should have been a warning. He'd married the last woman who'd lingered in his thoughts like that, and look what a disaster that had been.
Roxanne had envisioned life as a successful rancher's wife being a series of luncheons, dinners and perhaps an occasional masked ball. Kel's mouth twisted bitterly as he remembered her horrified expression when she'd realized how isolated the ranch was. She'd apparently pictured something along the lines of a Kentucky bluegrass country horse farm, with neat
green fields, picturesque white fences and plenty of opportunities for her to exercise her talents as a hostess. A Fourth of July barbecue had not been what she had in mind.
He'd been fortunate that, while on a trip to Boston to visit her family, Roxanne had met a wealthy businessman twenty-five years her senior who was looking for exactly what she had to offer. Since she was marrying into more money than even she could imagine spending, she'd forgone her right to a piece of the ranch, simply dusted the Wyoming dirt from her dainty heels and departed for points east.
Their marriage had lasted a year, and Kel doubted it would have lasted that long except that they were undeniably compatible in the bedroom. But by the time they'd divorced, even that compatibility had worn thin. He hadn't been sorry to see her go, but he'd been bitterly angry with himself for being such a fool.