“You look like you need to be in bed. That's a hell of a bruise on your forehead. Does it hurt?”
“Aunt Justine came over last night and brought me a few pain pills. Since she's a nurse, she wanted to make sure I didn't have a concussion.”
A lesser woman wouldn't have been on her feet today, and that in itself amazed Miguel. “What was your aunt's diagnosis?”
Anna grimaced. “That I have an unusually hard head.”
“She wasted a trip. I could have told her that.”
Anna couldn't stop herself. There was something about the man that pulled at her. Her mind said she didn't want to be within a hundred yards of him. Yet the rest of her craved to touch him, smell him, kiss his lips all over again.
Sliding from the bar stool, she joined him at the range, yet was careful to keep a few inches between their shoulders. In spite of the pungent smell of the bacon, her nose sniffed out the clean male scent of his skin, the faint musk in his aftershave.
“What are you cooking?” she asked.
“Bacon, eggs and tortillas.”
“Don't you know those things aren't good for you?”
His head turned slightly and his eyes settled on her lips. “There's lots of things that aren't good for me.”
Heat flared inside Anna like the instant spark of flint against steel, and her heart hummed like a runaway machine. It seemed incredible that only a month ago she thought she would never want another man. But now as she stood close to Miguel, she was fairly certain she was only just now learning what wanting a man was all about. Certainly she'd never felt this raw aching attraction for Scott. Or any man. Until she'd met Miguel. The idea was both exhilarating and frightening.
“Then why do you...indulge yourself?”
He grinned, then looked away from her as he placed tortillas on a hot griddle. Anna was relieved to find she could breathe again.
“A man only has a short time on this earth. To deny himself some of life's basic pleasures is foolish.”
Folding her arms against her breast, she watched him fork the crisp bacon onto a paper towel. “So you're not just a cowboy, you're a philosopher, too.”
He broke eggs into the bacon grease. “No. Just a cowboy with a few opinions.”
The word
few
put a vague smile on Anna's lips. “Is that what you've always been, a cowboy?”
He nodded. “Always a cowboy, and for a time a lawman, too.”
Completely surprised by his admission, she stared at him. “Really? What sort of lawman?”
“First as a deputy, then as an undersheriff.”
“Around here?”
“No. Bernalillo county.”
Her eyes widened. “That would include Albuquerque.”
“You're right.”
She waited, hoping he would tell her more. But he remained silent as he finished cooking the eggs and warming the tortillas. He worked at the stove with practiced ease, and Anna wondered if he'd learned to cook out of necessity or because he enjoyed it. She got the feeling it was both.
Once the food was done, she helped him carry the dishes to a booth-style table made of varnished knotty pine. The table was built next to a wide-paned window overlooking the backyard. Not that there was an actual backyard. Little more than thirty feet away, the bluff of the mountain rose up like a giant wall of craggy rock, where sage and pine clung tenaciously to the cracks and crevices.
Anna was always mesmerized by the wild beauty surrounding this place, and Miguel must have picked up on the wonder mirrored on her face as she gazed out the window.
“Haven't you ever seen the view behind the house?” he asked as he placed two fresh mugs of coffee beside their plates.
Nodding, Anna took a seat on one side of the table. “Yes. But it's been a long time. My brother and I used to come up here and go hiking and exploring. It's one of my favorite places on the ranch.” She looked at him as he took his seat across from her. “My dad first had this built as a honeymoon house for him and Mom. So they'd have a place to go when they wanted to be completely alone. But after a few years it somehow became the foreman's house.”
“When I came to work for your mother I had a house just east of Ruidoso,” Miguel told her. “I wanted to continue to live there, but Chloe wouldn't hear of it. She wanted me closer for practical purposes and promised that if I sold my house and then later decided I didn't want to work on the Bar M anymore, she'd pay the down payment on another one.” He shrugged. “But I fell in love with this place on first sight.”
Miguel passed the eggs to Anna, and she began to fill her plate. Her stomach was gnawing and fluttering. Breakfast was what it needed, but she hadn't planned on having it with Miguel. How she'd wound up here at his kitchen table was beyond her. He seemed to have a knack for taking control of her.
“My uncle Roy is the sheriff of Lincoln County,” Anna said. “I guess you must know him.”
“I've known Roy for many years. He's a legend in his own time.”
She shook a goodly amount of Tabasco over her eggs. “Did you not want to make the law your life as Roy has?”
Miguel swallowed several bites of food before he answered. “It was a job. A way to make money. I didn't see it as a career.”
“How long did you work as a lawman?”
Anna didn't know if his frown was caused by the effort of calculating or annoyance at being questioned by her. “More than ten years.”
His answer was nothing close to what she'd expected and the shock showed on her face. “Ten years! You must have started very young.”
One corner of his mouth lifted wryly. “Just how old do you think I am, Anna?”
She felt herself blushing as his dark hazel eyes waited on her face. “I don't know...thirty-five?”
“There was no need for you to be so careful about answering. I don't care if you know I'm thirty-seven.”
Thirty seven. He was a decade older than Scott, yet oddly enough, she felt no gap between them. He was simply a man and she a woman, and the hands of time had nothing to do with the breathless way she felt whenever she looked at him or touched him.
“And it really doesn't matter to me whether you know I'm going on twenty-five,” she replied. “But I would like to know why you quit being a lawman.”
The frown on his face deepened, and he forked a bite of egg from his plate. “Because I like being a cowboy more. Is that answer enough for you?”
The tortilla in her hand stopped midway to her lips. “No,” she retorted.
His eyes narrowed and for a moment he completely forgot he was eating breakfast. “Look, Anna, I'm not trying to hide some dark tragedy. I wasn't burned-out or disillusioned. Sure I encountered some hideous sights while I worked in law enforcement, but I was like your uncle Roy. I expected to see the worst and dealt with it as part of the job. It simply comes down to the fact that I'd rather strap on a pair of chaps than a gun every morning. Satisfied?”
As long as she was around this man she would never be satisfied. He was an enigma, a challenge, a man who stirred her far too much.
“Sorry I asked.”
“No, you're just sorry you wanted to know,” he said with lazy certainty. “You had this grand romantic notion that I have an unbearable festering splinter inside of me and you're the woman to pull it out and make me human and whole again. Well, I don't need healing or consoling or saving.”
She stared at him, anger shooting through her like a red-hot arrow. “What in the heâheck am I doing here?”
Before he could answer, she tossed the half-eaten tortilla onto her plate and jumped to her feet. “I'll be down at the stables. Not thatâ”
Her words broke off as a wave of dizziness suddenly spun the room around her head. Clutching the edge of the table with one hand, she pressed shaky fingers to the bruise on her forehead.
“Anna! Are you all right?” He got up from the table and put a steadying hand on her arm.
Anna wasn't all right. But not for anything would she admit her weakness to him: “I'm fine. I just got up too quickly. That's all.”
He cursed beneath his breath. “You've got a concussion! You shouldn't even be on your feet.”
The dizziness finally gone, she dropped her hand and glared at him. “Damn it, I don't have a concussion. And I wish you'd quit acting as though you know everything about me!”
Stung because she'd mocked his concern, he sneered at her. “If you don't have a concussion, what's wrong with you? Are you pregnant? Is that why you suddenly decided to come home to your mama and daddy?”
Stunned by his impertinent questions, her mouth fell open. “Are you crazy? Do you think I would have been working in the branding pen out in the heat if I were in such a condition?”
His jaw tightened and his eyes darkened. “I've known women to do worse.”
“Well, not me!” she gritted in outrage. “Besides, you know I'm not married.”
His brows lifted mockingly. “A person doesn't have to be married to have children. Or haven't you learned that yet?”
He was just the sort of man to point such a thing out, Anna thought angrily. “You have to be the most insolent...most arrogantâ”
“Sit down and finish your breakfast,” he ordered.
“It's finished! And so are we,” she said defiantly.
Suddenly his fist was full of her red hair, and he used it to tug her up against him. With a cruel chuckle, he said, “There is no âwe.' Or is that what you're really wanting, Anna? Is this what you're pushing me to do?”
He didn't give her a chance to answer. His head bent at the same time he jerked on her hair, forcing her face up to his.
“Yes,” he whispered huskily, his narrowed eyes roaming her flushed face. “I think this is what you really want.”
“Miguelâ”
His name was the only word he allowed her to speak. The rest he smothered with the brazen search of his lips. And all Anna could do was cling to the front of his shirt and try not to wilt at his feet.
“You kiss me like I'm the only man you've ever wanted,” he murmured.
He was making fun of her, but his words were so close to the truth she shuddered inwardly.
“You're not the only man I've ever kissed!” she tried to defend herself, but her voice was weak and trembling.
He looked at her with hard, hooded eyes. “I didn't say I was the only man you'd kissed. I said the only man you had wanted. There's a big difference, Anna. And I'm warning you not to try and spread your virgin wings on me.”
“As if I'd want to! And my being a virgin is hardly your business!”
Ignoring her sarcasm, he said, “You and I are two different breeds, Anna. I know what you are, and I know what I am. We won't go together like tortillas and honey.”
How could he know about her? Anna wondered. And why did she want him to know the real woman she was, not the one he believed her to be? He was overbearing and impudent. But most of all he was a man. And she'd sworn never to want another one!
Jerking her arm from his grasp, she stepped around him. “I'm very relieved to hear that, Miguel. So you take care of your end of things on the ranch, and I'll take care of mine. Savvy?”
“Completely.”
Not bothering to give him a backward glance, Anna left the room. She was across the deck and on the way down the steps to her truck when Miguel's deep voice called after her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to steel herself against the sight of his hard, handsome image outlined by the mountain bluff behind him. He fit this land like a hand to a glove. But then so did she. He just didn't know it.
“I'm going to be watching you.”
Turning to face him, she pushed back the brim of her hat and stared up at him. “Excuse me. I thought you were the foreman around here, not the lord of the manor.”
“I can be both. If need be.”
In other words if she couldn't take care of the place while her parents were gone, he certainly could. And would, if she so much as faltered a step.
Well, she wouldn't stumble or stagger, she silently averred. And Mr. Miguel Chavez was going to have to eat every hateful word he'd ever said to her before she left the Bar M.
Chapter Four
A
nna replaced the phone on its cradle, then fell back against the cushions of the couch in a dazed thump. Adam was going to be fine. His broken ankle had already been set and put in a plaster cast. Tomorrow he would be released from the hospital. The news was exactly what she'd been desperately wanting to hear all morning. It was the rest of her mother's message that had knocked Anna's feet out from under her.
What had been her parents' thinking? Or more rightly her mother? Of course Anna could see it was a perfect time for the two of them to travel on down to the coast of Brazil and enjoy a second honeymoon. But Anna had been away from the ranch for more than a year! And even longer still since she'd done any real work around the place. Did her parents actually think she was capable of seeing after the horses for three weeks or a month?
It wasn't that Anna was afraid of manual labor. In fact, she welcomed the release it gave her after hours of sitting at the piano day after day. But the responsibility of seeing after two barns full of highbred racehorses was something else altogether. What if one became injured or ill? What if she exercised them too much or too little? They'd all be so stiff and sore they'd never be able to run to a feed bucket, much less down a race track.
And then there was Miguel. The man was insufferable. He'd be watching her every move. No doubt he'd take great pleasure in seeing her fall on her face.
Rising from the couch, she wandered restlessly over to the piano. The lid was down and had been that way since she'd arrived home four days ago. So far she'd had no desire to make any sort of music.
Her fingers trailed absently over the wood as thoughts of this morning burned once again in her mind. Miguel believed she wasn't capable of doing anything except play the piano. And no doubt he'd roar a loud complaint when he heard Chloe had left her in charge for the next month. But Anna wasn't one dimensional. There was more to her than making music and pleasing an audience. Moreover, her parents had put their faith and trust in her. If need be she'd work twenty-four hours a day to make sure things ran smoothly. And in the process she'd show Miguel Chavez that she was not just a coddled performer who knew nothing of the real world!
Â
When Miguel rode in from roundup later that evening, darkness had overtaken the ranch yard. All of the cowhands had chosen to stay with the chuck wagon and bed down in sleeping bags rather than ride back to the ranch. But Miguel had felt the need to come back to the Bar M. With her parents gone, he didn't want Anna to be entirely alone.
She might think she was perfectly capable of handling things around here. But Miguel knew better. Three days from now she'd be crying for him to take over.
A glance at his watch told him it was nearly nine. A late hour for him to be out on a horse, but he seriously doubted Anna would be in bed. As soon as he unsaddled and tended to his mount, he'd walk down to the house and speak with her. Hopefully she had news of Adam.
The many working horses on the Bar M were stalled in a separate barn, several yards away from Chloe's high-strung racing stock. As he led the tired animal past the stables of Thoroughbreds, he noticed a shaft of light beneath the closed doors. Figuring Anna had forgotten to turn it off, he made a mental note to stop and check it before he left the ranch yard.
Twenty minutes later, on his way back by the stables, he noticed the light was still burning. He opened the doors to extinguish it and was instantly shocked to see Anna at the opposite end of the building. One hand held a galvanized pail, while the other gripped a thick lead rope attached to a skittish yearling, who followed closely on her shoulder.
Miguel walked quickly down the alleyway to intercept her. Once he was within a few steps, she stopped and lifted her head to look at him. For a moment all Miguel could do was stare back, stunned at her appearance. Gone were the expensive clothes, hat and boots. They had been replaced by worn jeans and shirt, work boots and a baseball cap. Yet the clothes were only a part of the drastic change. The woman was bone-weary exhausted. He could see it in the dark smudges beneath her eyes and the deep lines bracketing her mouth. The bruise on her temple looked even more purple against her white face.
“Anna, what are you doing?”
She gave him a look that said his question had to be the most ignorant she'd ever heard. “I'm taking care of the horses. What does it look like?”
He made a point of glancing at his wristwatch. “At this time of night? Your mother never works this late. Not even on a race day.”
Anna wanted to snap at him, to remind him that she wasn't her mother. But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing she was riled or rattled. She knew how to be cool and by damn she would be.
Squaring her shoulders as best she could, she said, “Maybe it slipped your mind that all the hands are out on roundup. It takes time for one person to feed and water thirty head of horses.”
Miguel felt like kicking himself. He'd been so busy he'd not thought to send a couple of the men back to help her. Anna must surely be thinking he'd purposely kept every ranch hand for his own needs.
“I guess I owe you an apology.”
Anna didn't want his apologies, she wanted his respect. But it looked as though she was going to have to earn that the hard way. “Forget it. I'd rather care for the horses myself than trust a cowboy to do it right.”
She led the horse on past him, and Miguel automatically followed. Every masculine cell inside him wanted to take the pail of water from her hand and carry it for her. But from her remark he could only believe she would resent his help.
Angry at himself, and at her, but not really sure why, he blurted out, “You shouldn't be out here working this late.” Hell, she shouldn't have been here at all, Miguel thought. Not with that goose egg on her forehead.
“I'm fine.”
Deciding it would be best to let it go at those two words, Miguel watched her lead the young horse into a stall and unsnap the lead rope from the colt's halter. “Have you heard from your parents yet? How is your brother?”
The concern in his voice caused Anna to glance at him. “My brother is going to be fine. They've placed his foot in a cast and he'll be released from the hospital tomorrow.”
Anna couldn't help but notice Miguel was visibly relieved. The fact that he was concerned for her brother touched her. Adam was so much a part of her. Even when they were apart, which had been often these past few years, she always felt his presence with her.
“So when are Chloe and Wyatt coming home? Tomorrow?”
Anna filled the yearling's water bucket, then stepped out of the stall. “No. They won't be heading back for a while.”
He pushed the brim of his dirty felt hat back off his forehead. “What's happened? Adam needs them down there?”
She let out a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “Independent Adam? Not hardly. He's determined to finish the job down there on crutches, so my parents have suddenly decided now would be a good time for them to travel on down to the coast and spend the next few weeks on a second honeymoon.”
Miguel looked incredulous. “You're not serious, are you?”
Anna wearily pushed a tangle of red curls off her forehead and leaned her shoulder against the stall door. “This is hardly a time to be joking.”
“But why would they do something like that now? You're here on vacation. Looks to me as though they'd want to spend some time with you.”
“There will be plenty of time for them to be with me once they get back. I'm sure you've seen for yourself that Mother rarely ever takes a vacation away from the ranch. And Daddy will thoroughly love having her all to himself.”
Miguel's expression of dismay didn't alter. “Both your parents work very hard. I understand all that. But to leave you with all this to care for.” He gestured at the row of stalled horses and shook his head. “I'm going to be honest with you, this is very much out of character for them.”
Not for anything would Anna let him know she'd been thinking the very same thing. She'd taken heart in the fact that her parents didn't doubt her capabilities of caring for the ranch. But was she really? Could she get through the next few weeks without making a fool of herself and a mess of everything? Were her parents trying to test her for some reason?
“I suppose they were thinking it's a rare day when one of their children is available to take over for them. I'm here, and they asked me if I would handle seeing after the ranch. I was hardly going to disappoint them by saying no.”
“Well that's just dandy,” he muttered. “They leave you here with a concussion and a lump on your forehead as big as a golf ball and expect you to take care of things.”
Frowning, Anna's fingers lifted to her forehead. “I don't have a concussion, and there's hardly a lump there at all now.”
Miguel snorted. “You look like you're ready to fall over.”
Before she realized what he was about to do, he snatched up both her hands and studied her palms. The soft skin just below her fingers was broken and bleeding. Not wanting him to see the damage, she tried to jerk them loose from his grip, but he tightened his hold.
“I knew Chloe was wrong about you. Any normal cowgirl would know to wear a pair of work gloves. Now you've got a pair of ruined hands to go with a concussion!”
Anna tried to glare at him, but the touch of his hands so firmly wrapped around hers was sending her senses in all sorts of wild directions. The most she could do was stare at him in bewilderment.
“For the last timeâI don't have a concussion. And for your information, I've had on a pair of gloves all day. I only took them off a few minutes ago.”
“Just as I figured. You're so soft even a pair of gloves don't help.”
“What do you know about it?” Anna muttered, hating the smugness in his voice.
“I know you look ready to fall in your tracks at any moment.”
Her gaze made a slow, deliberate sweep of his tall muscular body. Dirt, manure and grass stained the entire front of his jeans and a good measure of his denim shirt. Dust coated the faint stubble of beard on his chin and jaws. His eyes were bloodshot from long hours in the sun. And in that one long glance, Anna felt herself melting like a cube of sugar in a cup of hot coffee. He was a man who worked hard for himself and for her parents. She greatly respected him for that.
“You don't exactly look ready for the hundred-yard dash yourself,” she replied.
“I'm used to this. You're not.”
Anna was dead on her feet, but as she'd discovered beforehand there was something about Miguel that made her want to linger in his presence, to find out the mysteries behind his dark hazel eyes.
Shaking her hair back over her shoulders, she leveled her gaze on his face and sighed with irritation. “I suppose you think my job doesn't require long hours.”
“I'm sure I don't know what it requires. But I do know you don't come away from the piano like this.” His lips thinned to a line of disgust as he looked once again at torn flesh on her palms. “Come on. Let's go down to the house and I'll fix them for you.”
Beneath the brim of the baseball cap, Anna's brows arched with dismay. “Fix them? I have a few blisters, Miguel. I don't need stitches!”
Miguel would like to tell her exactly what he thought she needed, but he was too exhausted to have a round with her tonight. Besides, he seriously doubted she'd be able to make it out of bed in the morning. And once that happened he'd be in the clear to hire someone to take care of the horses.
“These hands need to be cleaned and dressed, just the same.”
“I can't take a shower with bandages on my hands. And I can hardly go to bed like this!” She looked pointedly down at the front of her dirty clothes.
“I'll wait for you to get out of the shower.” He dropped her hands, but before Anna could breathe a sigh of relief that he was no longer touching her, he took her by the shoulder and urged her out of the stables.
“Maybe Chloe will have some leftovers in the fridge,” he said. “I rode out of camp before Cook had supper ready.”
“You raid my parents refrigerator often?” she asked drily.
He switched off the lights and the two of them stepped outside. As he turned to fasten the double doors, he said, “Whenever I can catch them gone. I steal their jewels and sell them for whiskey money, too.”
“You're so funny.”
He glanced at her shadowed face. The only smile he'd seen on her face had been a mocking one. He was beginning to doubt the woman knew how to really smile. “I can assure you, you're not a bit amusing.”
She made a disgusted sound in her throat. “I didn't realize I was supposed to be making you laugh.”
“What about making yourself laugh?”