Rancher at Risk (14 page)

As she picked up the phone, he watched her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Saw her brow crease while she scanned the first message. Watched her thumbs tapping keys and assumed she went on to the next message and the next.

And the next.

She would barely pause at the end of a series of taps, and the phone would vibrate yet again. Her fingers worked furiously as she started to key in one response after another.

She hadn’t looked at him once. He might as well not have been in the room.

Before tonight he had seen her turn her head away to end a conversation she didn’t want to have with him.

Now she focused on the cell phone, just as effectively shutting him out.

Maybe those nerves had gotten to her. Maybe she’d had second thoughts. Fourth or fifth thoughts. Maybe even before this, her chattering had come from a need to avoid something she no longer wanted. In that case, no matter what he tried, things wouldn’t go the way he’d hoped.

He got to his feet. Picked up his boots. Waited.

Her gaze stayed on the phone. Her thumbs flew over the keys. Her brow stayed creased and her back remained facing him.

Right.

He left her room and headed for his own, leaving his desires behind. All for the best. He had never forced a woman to spend time with him, and he sure as hell had never played games to get one into bed.

She’s not just any woman.

The thought chased him into his room.

He looked at the photo frame on the dresser. All this week, he hadn’t given a thought to his wife
or
his son.

He tossed his boots into the closet, yanked his shirt from his jeans and shook his head. His trip to Lianne’s bed had worked out just the way it should have.

But damn, what
could
have happened still had him hard and breathing heavy.

Or…
would
anything have happened? Was this still fun and games for Lianne, the way it had been in the beginning?

Had she wanted the lights left on so she could make an easy escape? Would she have stopped things just as they got interesting, the way she had that day on the trail when he’d kissed her?

And damn it all, why had he forgotten his goal, put aside his need to rebuild his reputation, just to let himself get caught up in her stories again?

Chapter Eleven

Apparently, Ryan had found it easy to replace one appetite with another. Lianne found him in the kitchen with a mug of coffee and a plate of pie on the table in front of him.

“Did you save me a piece?” she asked.

His eyebrows shot up. She had surprised him. Maybe her bedroom slippers hadn’t made enough noise for him to hear her in the hall. “I’m sorry about this.” She gestured with the phone in her hand.

He nodded.

She rested her shoulder against the doorframe. “Kayla’s husband, Sam, texted me, and we went back and forth for a while. Then I heard from his mom, Sharleen. And after that, finally, Kayla herself. She’s at the hospital.”

He put down the mug he’d just lifted. “Everything okay?”

Her heart fluttered at his obvious concern. “Yes. But evidently my nephew’s getting restless.”

“She’s having him now?”

“No. They’re sending her home again, but she needs to take it easy. They want her to get closer to her due date.”

He shifted in his chair and pushed the plate away. “Guess she knows the routine.”

“Why would she…? Oh. Becky.” She shook her head. “No, we’re sort of a complicated family. The baby is Kayla’s first.”

If he had asked a question, if he hadn’t dropped his gaze, if he hadn’t reached for his fork again, she might have explained.

If she hadn’t had to track him down, she wouldn’t be standing here leaning against the doorframe. She stood upright. He hadn’t looked over at her again. The first sight of his midnight snack should have clued her in.

“I’m ready for bed.” Only as the words left her mouth did she realize how he might take the statement. But he didn’t react to the double meaning, just nodded and stabbed another piece of pie.

She turned and left the room.

Now her heart thumped painfully. Her eyes blurred. Despite her determination not to think of what had happened between them, the thoughts came. Just a few minutes ago he had kissed her nearly senseless. His hands had touched her, stroked her, as though she were something delicate and easily broken…

Or
already
broken? Was that why he had taken such care with her?

She almost missed a step on the stairs.

As she went up to the second floor, she felt no footsteps behind her. When she looked back from the doorway of her bedroom, the hall was deserted. He hadn’t followed. And she shouldn’t,
couldn’t,
have expected him to.

Why would he come after her now when he had been so quick to use her texts as an excuse to stop kissing her and leave her bedroom? When he so obviously preferred pie to…to…
passion.

The comparison did the trick, allowing her to laugh despite the threatening tears.

That was what she got for falling for his “get to know you” line. For taking the risk of mixing pleasure into their business relationship. Clearly, he had gotten to spend enough time with her to know he wasn’t interested.

And she needed to get her job done.

An impossible goal, maybe, with Ryan still her supervisor, working beside her every day. With Ryan such a distraction, she found it hard to focus on spreadsheets and schedules.

How would she manage to concentrate at all now, with her memories of what had happened between them tonight…
before
the texts?

She should have known better than to get involved with him at all. Hadn’t she learned her lesson in Chicago?

Two steps took her into her bedroom. She turned back and smacked the door shut.

* * *

L
IANNE
TOOK
THE
chair from the corner of the bedroom and set it beside the bed.

“I’m so glad to see you.”
Smiling, Kayla pushed the sheet aside.
“I can use someone to talk to. Sam and Sharleen already had a fit because I wouldn’t sleep in this morning.”

“So I heard.” She had seen Sam and his mother downstairs.

“Of course, I won’t do anything against my doctor’s orders. But he hasn’t said anything about full bed rest.”

Lianne smiled, happy to see for herself what Kayla had texted last night: everything was fine. She could just imagine how bored her normally active sister must feel.

“And I’m doing great. Just tired. I was so tired on our way out of the community center last night I forgot to sign.”

“Don’t worry about that. And take a break from it now. I’m only a few feet away.” She scooted the chair a little closer. “Sorry to get here so early, but I wanted to see you face-to-face.”

She could only hope her voice sounded natural. Her desire to see Kayla had been matched by her desire
not
to see Ryan at all this morning. She had lingered upstairs in her room until he had walked past the barn on his way to the bunkhouse. Cowardly, yes. But she hadn’t felt ready to face him.

As soon as she had showered and dressed, she’d gone into town to the Double S for breakfast. And now she had come here.

“I’ll be back in two minutes,” Kayla said. “Then you can fill me in.”

Lianne slumped in her chair. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. But she couldn’t have stayed at the ranch house all day, attempting to work but wondering when Ryan would make a sudden appearance in her office doorway. Wondering, yet again, how glad he had felt for the excuse to escape from her last night.

Part of her wished she would never have to go back there, never have to face the truth.

Last night
she had taken him to her bedroom.

What had she been thinking? She should have listened to herself the day they had hiked up the trail and he’d kissed her.

Hot or not, with all his micromanaging, he had already proven how little respect he had for her abilities.

And she had sworn off men who wouldn’t treat her as an equal.

Kayla padded into the room again, climbed onto the bed and adjusted the pillow she had propped up behind her, as if settling in for a long conversation.

Lianne shifted in her chair. She couldn’t dump everything on Kayla now. In fact, maybe she could help her. “Since school’s out, how about I borrow Becky overnight? It’s lonely out at the ranch, and I could use some company.”

“You’re welcome to take her anytime—you know that,” Kayla said. “But she’s already arranged to have her friend sleep over here tonight.”

“I saw P.J. downstairs.” She knew the little boy and his family from previous visits. “I’ll take him along with me, too. Can you clear it with his mom?”

Kayla smiled. “You must be desperate to want to take them both.”

If she only knew…. “No, I’m just thinking it would give Sharleen a break.”

That was true enough. But her request had had nothing to do with being lonely on the ranch. How could she be lonely? She talked with Tony often and made her daily trips out to the construction site. And once she had agreed to go to the party at the community center, Ryan had found more reasons to come into the office. She couldn’t deal with that now. Not after last night.

No, taking Becky and P.J. out to the ranch had nothing to do with loneliness.

She glanced at Kayla, who sat doing some thinking of her own. She could almost see the gears turning in her sister’s head. Finally, Kayla said, “That’s actually a great idea. Sharleen would never say she needed the rest, but we had a late night last night. Becky wears her out, and she’s going to need all her energy if she and Sam want me to stay in bed all day. “You’re sure you don’t mind taking P.J., too?”

“The more the merrier.” And the more help she would have in resisting Ryan. “Why don’t you make the call so I can go tell the kids about the change of plans?”

“Okay—
if
you talk to me afterward.”

Lianne sighed. Kayla had always been good for a bit of sisterly blackmail.

“Come on, big sis. I saw you on that dance floor last night.”

Heat flooded her face. “I thought you’d left.”

“I needed to make a quick restroom stop. It’s a long ride from the community center to home. By the way,” she added, “Ellamae’s on her way over. And you know what that means.”

They both did. She’d better start talking—fast.

She loved Tess’s aunt. But Ellamae had been at the community center. After Ryan had led her off the dance floor, she had seen Ellamae’s big grin. The woman would want to be filled in, too. Just as Kayla did.

“Sharleen said she’s bringing breakfast rolls from the Whistlestop.” Kayla grinned. “So what’s it going to be? Talk to me? Or face a
real
inquisition?”

Sighing, Lianne picked up the cordless phone from the nightstand near Kayla and handed it to her.

* * *

A
LL
HELL
HAD
broken loose in the kitchen.

Ryan had come by the house more times than he should have today, but he was determined to keep their working relationship working as well as possible, all things considered. Fool that he was, he’d already lost his determination to stop thinking about last night.

Luckily, thinking and doing were two different things.

On his first trip back to the house, the empty space in the driveway had told him Lianne was not to be found. That state of affairs had continued all day.

Now the car sat parked in its regular space again, the kitchen was in chaos, and he still didn’t see her.

He froze with his hand on the door he had just opened and with his boots planted on the porch. The noise blasting at him from inside the room could have knocked a bull rider out of his saddle before he’d even gotten clear of the chute.

On the counter, a radio with the bass control cranked to high boomed something with a heavy drumbeat trying to outplay screaming guitars. Caleb’s daughter, Nate, sang at the top of her lungs into an invisible microphone.

From somewhere beneath the kitchen table, a dog barked.

At the table, a small boy and girl laughed and screeched over the game board spread in front of them.

Damn.
His stomach tensed and his chest compressed and he had to struggle to take a breath.

Finally, he saw Lianne, with her back to them all, rummaging in the refrigerator.

Easing the door closed behind him, he stepped into the kitchen. He rubbed the back of his hand across his chin and wondered how the hell he was going to get across the room alive—and without any of them noticing as he passed through.

The last thing he wanted was to be around a bunch of kids. Then he took a closer look at the pair playing at the table and saw things he wished
he
hadn’t noticed.

The little girl who knelt on the ladder-back chair at the table was the one he’d almost hit with his truck. The boy in the chair beside hers appeared to be just the age Billy would be now.

And the game they were playing looked all too familiar.

Got to get out of this room.

Too late. Nate spotted him standing there, feet frozen to the floor. Abruptly, she stopped screeching and smacked her palm against the top of the radio. The noise level in the room decreased by about eighty percent. The music still pounded in his head.

“Hey, Ryan!” Nate yelled. “Did you know my daddy’s coming home tomorrow?”

The pounding in his head increased. Right now he couldn’t think about Caleb’s return. But he nodded in response.

Nate swept the air, gesturing toward the table. “That’s P.J.—he’s my best friend’s brother—and that’s Becky. She doesn’t talk, so I’ll have to help you when you want to talk to her.” She stopped to gulp a breath and then rushed on. “Guess what. We’re having a sleepover and you’re just in time for the barbecue!”

He got a stranglehold on the brim of the Stetson he’d removed at the door. “Well, thanks, but—”

Lianne slammed the refrigerator door closed and turned their way, her arms filled with bottles and jars of ketchup, mustard and what looked like pickle relish. Their gazes met, and she tightened her hold on the containers.