Читать книгу The Last Landry - Kelsey Roberts - Страница 12

Taylor liked the structure of her life. A life, she acknowledged, as she carried the heavy tray stacked with pies toward the bunkhouse, that didn’t fit any of the criteria she’d so carefully defined. “How did I manage to mess up so royally?” she whispered as she trudged across the moist ground, doing her best to balance the tray and avoid a huge mud puddle courtesy of the early snowmelt.

Didn’t matter. It would be history soon. She’d get back on track. She’d forget that she actually liked caring for a family—lessons learned and reinforced over and over during her tenure on the ranch. She couldn’t erase the last five years. Probably wouldn’t even if she could. It would mean forgetting how much she loved preparing meals, planning parties and celebrating milestones, and she didn’t want to do that. But she couldn’t make that her whole life, right? No. Career had to be the focus. That was the smart choice. Relationships couldn’t be controlled, and had the ability to evaporate in a second. She didn’t want to be one of those sad women sitting alone in some dingy apartment, pining for a man. Men made you desperate and she’d had enough of desperate to last a lifetime.

So, while she liked her current life, Taylor knew it had to end. Time to move on. Captain her own ship. Float her own boat. “When did I become the queen of the nautical metaphor?” she grumbled, sidestepping another hazardous mud puddle.

Here she was, on the brink of checking off one of the major things on her life-goals list, and she wasn’t happy. That was annoying as sin. She should be ecstatic, exuberantly anticipating her future.

A future that didn’t include the large, loving Landry family. Taylor felt a chill carried on the early evening air. Within a week of meeting the Landrys, all of her preconceived notions had started to crumble. Everything, absolutely everything, she’d been living, breathing, believing, planning and plotting for much of her life had collapsed, crumpled, shattered. It wasn’t supposed to be like th—

She screamed, nearly pitching the tray, startled by seeing two men lurking in the shadows. Her yelp of alarm brought four or five more men out of the bunkhouse, along with the attention of the shrouded figures. Her heart was racing even after she recognized one of the men.

Nervous laughter spilled from her as Will Hampton stepped into the beam of light caused by the flood lamp mounted above the front door. “You nearly scared me to death!” she chided.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he replied with a tip of his tattered hat.

Will was a walking cliché, the very image of a taciturn cowboy. From the hat to his craggy, leathery face, jeans, bowed legs and scuffed boots—you name it, he had it. Along with a personality that bordered on nonexistent. He barely ever spoke, and when he did, it was in one-or two-word sentences that almost always ended in a polite “ma’am.”

Smiling, Taylor acknowledged the other man. He wasn’t familiar, but they were at the launch of the spring calving season, so there were any number of men drifting in and out of steady employment. “I brought you dessert.” She handed the tray to Will, glad to rid herself of its weight, and smiled at the other man. “Hi, I’m Taylor.”

“LukeAdams,” he stated, offering her a perfect smile.

Too perfect, she thought. Ranch hands didn’t normally spend that kind of money on cosmetic dentistry. Nor, she noted, did they have tattoos across their knuckles. Nor, ink marks aside, were they usually so attractive. Luke didn’t have the sun-aged skin of a tenured hand. He was just shy of six feet, with neatly trimmed hair—what she could see of it beneath his hat—and light eyes. Maybe he was just what she needed to get her mind off Shane. Not the brightest approach to filling her final weeks on the ranch, but it wasn’t as if she had any plans for a future here.

“Welcome to the Lucky 7.”

“Thank you,” he said politely.

“When did you sign on?”

“A couple of days back,” Luke answered.

He had a nice voice—not as deep as Shane’s—and he was definitely checking her out. “Where’d you work before?” Taylor’s curiosity was, pathetically, only marginally piqued.

“Here and there,” he said with a shrug of acceptably muscled shoulders. Shane’s were broad and sculpted. She knew this because she’d seen him shirtless. A half-dressed Shane was a thing of beauty.

“…Mrs. Landry?”

She shook off her Shane-brain and asked Luke to repeat the question.

“Are you Mrs. Landry?”

“I’m not,” she answered quickly, hating that she hated saying it. “But there are six of them around. Can’t help but run into one eventually.”

“Six wives? Is this one of those pluralist families I’ve read about?”

“We gotta go, Luke,” Will interrupted, clearly irritated by the mildly flirtatious tone of the conversation. “Ma’am.”

Then again, everything about Taylor seemed to irritate Will. They hadn’t exactly bonded during her time at the ranch. At first she’d tried killing him with kindness, but that didn’t get her too far. Now she just settled for civil exchanges whenever the two of them shared the same space.

Taylor couldn’t fathom why it was that Shane adored Will. As she walked back to the house, she recalled the countless times he had praised the foreman, who’d been working at the ranch in some capacity or another for more than forty years. She suspected Shane thought of the older man as a substitute father. Made perfect sense, considering that Will had stepped in to handle things during Shane’s father’s absence. Good thing, too, since none of the other brothers had any interest in the actual day-to-day running of the ranch.

She thought about the gaggle of Landry men. Sam preferred the world of high finance. Seth and Cody were in law enforcement, Seth as the sheriff of Jasper and Cody as a federal marshal. Chance was a doctor, a general practitioner in town. Clayton had a law office in Missoula, crusading to save others from the horrible ordeal that had robbed him of four years of his life. And Chandler, well, he was a big, important author now. Taylor smiled, remembering how stunned she’d been to learn of his well-hidden, secret persona.

Shane was the homebody. He adored everything about the ranch, including Will, who he obviously looked to as a friend and mentor. That alone was almost enough of a reason for Taylor to keep trying with the crusty old guy. She had a pretty good idea of what it must have been like for Shane to return to the Lucky 7 after so many years, only to find his parents gone.

Now he knew they were dead. She felt great empathy for the Landry clan. Especially Shane, since she knew precisely how he was feeling even if they never talked about that sort of thing. Actually, they never talked, period.

The concept of parental abandonment hit close to home, Taylor acknowledged as she stepped off the pathway in order to avoid another mud puddle. She knew what it felt like from firsthand experience.

That was only a minor reason why Shane was off-limits. In addition to a strong physical pull, she suspected, they had too much else in common. They had—

Taylor didn’t get to finish her thought. Not when she found herself suddenly flying facefirst into a deep puddle of mud. Turning her head to the side just in time, she spat out grit, then let loose a colorful curse.

She opened one eye to see a pair of size thirteen boots inches away from her nose. “Is that any way for a lady to talk?” Shane chided.

“Are you going to help me?” she demanded, glaring up at him as she struggled to her hands and knees in the cold slime.

His face contorted in what she was sure was a very gallant attempt to keep from laughing. “Only if you ask nicely.”

She glared daggers up at him, feeling the globs of mud slide down the front of her shirt and into her bra. “I would rather gnaw off my own muddy tongue.”

“Suit yourself,” he sighed, shifting his weight and crossing his arms over his chest.

Taylor did a humiliating Three Stooges thing where she’d almost make it, then lose her footing and fall again. But she refused to ask for his assistance. Arrogant and…stupid. Neither of those things normally described her, yet Shane seemed to bring them all out in spades.

With the grace and balance of a two-legged giraffe, she finally pulled herself out of the puddle and back onto dry land. She was soaked, and filthy, smelled like earth and was so cold her teeth started to chatter.

Shane mumbled something unflattering about her being hardheaded as he removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders.

“It’ll get ruined,” she complained.

“So will you, if you don’t get out of those wet things before you catch cold.”

She wrapped herself in the coat, feeling the warmth of his body transfer to hers. “You don’t catch a cold from the weather. A cold is a virus and—”

“Can’t you ever just say thank-you?” he grumbled as he took her by the elbow and led her toward the back door.

She practically had to jog to keep pace with him. Shane didn’t seem to realize that their height difference meant she had to take two steps to his one. “Sure. Thank you for not helping me out of the puddle.”

He chuckled softly. As always, the sound comforted her in ways it shouldn’t and at a time it shouldn’t.

“You’re a real smart-ass, Taylor.”

“One of us has to be smart,” she retorted, glancing up to bat her eyelashes at him. “Get the door so that I don’t have to wash the mud off it in the morning.”

“A competent housekeeper wouldn’t wait until morning.” He reached around her and grabbed the knob, then yanked open the door.

“A competent housekeeper wouldn’t work for the pittance you pay me.” Which was totally unfair, she acknowledged rather guiltily. Sometimes she had to find ammunition when no ammunition was available.

“Free room,” he reminded her, following her inside. “And board, tuition payments and a car. I don’t see where you’re so bad off.”

Removing the coat, she held it out to him as if she was handing him a giant cootie. “I am perfect. You are bad off.”

“Really?” Using his coat like protective gloves, he grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around and marched her into the hallway.

Taylor almost shrieked when she caught sight of her reflection in the beveled mirror above the highboy. Her hair was nothing but limp, brown clumps. The only part of her face not covered in mud were her eyes, making her look like some nocturnal creature.

“Not so perfect now, eh?”

“You’re an evil man,” she cried, twisting free and racing off to her room. She’d worry about the mud tracks on the polished wood floors after she showered and threw her clothes in the trash. Only now there was very little hope of making her class on time. That great, structured life of hers had gone to hell in a handcart rather quickly.

Ten minutes later, a freshly showered Taylor was racing around, putting on her shoes while making an attempt at maneuvering the hair dryer one-handed. It wasn’t the best system, so she gave up, grabbing a large clip off the vanity and twisting her clean but soaking hair into a messy bundle at the back of her head.

At least she wouldn’t be stuck in a class for three hours wearing a damp sweater, smelling like wet wool. Glancing over at the clock, she grabbed her keys and dashed toward the front door. If she ignored the posted speed limit and parked illegally, she’d only be ten or fifteen minutes late.

“I’m leaving!” she called out, skating on her towel to clean the mud off the floor as she went.

“For good, I hope?” Shane asked as he came out of the living room and leaned against the jamb.

She smiled. “Soon enough, but for now, you’d be lost without me, Shane.”

His eyes met hers. “Very true.”

Man, she hated it when he did that! Banter worked. Moments of genuine kindness, like sacrificing his coat and cleaning the kitchen after her pie baking marathon, did not. The man didn’t play fair.

It was easier to spar with Shane than to acknowledge his good side. Well, technically, it was a great side. But she was in too much of a hurry to deal with all that right now. “N-night,” she stammered awkwardly, moving in a wide arc to avoid even the possibility of making physical contact.

“Do you have pencils and paper?” he asked, moving into her path.

“It’s graduate school, Shane, not kindergarten.”

His dark head tilted to one side; his warm, minty breath fell across her upturned face. Taylor’s pulse quickened as his fingers reached out, hovering just shy of her throat. Anticipation rushed through her system. Contradictory thoughts—Please touch me! No, don’t touch me!—ping-ponged in her mind. She struggled to keep from betraying herself completely.

Not an easy task when she was standing in the shadow of more than six feet of absolute male perfection. His soft, cotton shirt hugged every inch of corded muscle, outlining his broad shoulders and solid torso. She tried not to notice that unlike her, his chest rose and fell rhythmically, evenly. She had to stand her ground. She knew Shane well. Suspected he would pounce at even the smallest slip in her facade.

That was her fault. She was the one who’d put that tightrope between them. The cute-banter idea had seemed safe when she’d first arrived at the ranch and felt the tingle when he’d shaken her hand. Now it was a flimsy cover barely protecting her from the intensity of his gaze. The longing churning in her belly. The need building day by day, hour by hour, second by second.

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, making her shiver. “You could stay here. I’ll draw some inkblots and you can analyze me.”

She slapped his hand away. “Pass, thanks. I don’t have time to play games with boys in men’s clothing.” She checked her watch, using that as an excuse to divert her eyes from the tractor beam of his gaze.

“Chicken?” His tone was low and far too sexy for her comfort level.

“No, thanks, I’ve eaten.” She inched past him. “Good night, Shane.”

“Have a good time.” His voice was now laced with something that managed to be seductive and taunting all at the same, confusing time. She was glad to be making an escape and even happier to have an excuse to do it quickly.

The man was annoying. He was impossible. “He does have a great butt,” she murmured as she opened her car door. That small confession brought a smile to her lips.

A smile that vanished the instant she saw the threatening note attached to her seat by the glistening blade of a knife.