Читать книгу Porcupine Ranch - Sally Carleen - Страница 10

Nobody leaves the ranch unless it’s an emergency?

Clayton’s words hit Hannah smack in the gut like a bad case of botulism.

So much for her plans to be out of there before night. Clayton wasn’t talking about just a day or two. Did this emergency thing mean she’d have to burn down the house to get out? Or would a complete nervous breakdown be sufficient?

Hoping for a sudden time warp to fold around her and drag her anywhere but where she was, Hannah followed Clayton’s towering figure across the yard and into the house.

His broad back and denim-clad thighs made her blood run hot on the way to her heart and cold on the way back as she thought of having to face him, talk to him. Or maybe it was all running at the same time, sharing the same vein. The way she felt right now, anything was possible. Except, apparently, that time warp. She remained stuck in the here and now.

Clayton led her upstairs to a large, dark room at the end of the hall. Large dark furniture, including a four-poster bed, loomed at her. She was supposed to sleep in this mausoleum?

He deposited her bags inside the door. “Your bathroom is two doors down. Sorry it’s not private. This house was built before we had indoor plumbing this far out of the city.”

Not private? Hannah gulped at the thought of sharing a bathroom…and sharing it with this overwhelming male person.

“Of course, the only visitors we ever have are my mother and her husband. So, except for the fact that you have to go out in the hall, it’s pretty much private.” Hannah released a soft sigh of relief mingled with a tiny hint of disappointment that Clayton apparently had his own bathroom. “Clothes closet through there, linen closet in the hall,” he continued, obviously unaware of her personal drama.

Clayton checked his watch, and her gaze followed his, noting the sunbleached hairs curling from his shirt sleeve, surrounding the leather band.

“Ready to fix a little lunch for six hungry cowboys?” he asked.

She nodded, wondering if a lie had to be verbalized or if movement counted. Lying by omission, lying by nod.

She was ready for a lot of things—to run screaming from the house, to murder Samuel, to press the hairs on Clayton’s wrist and watch them spring back, but she was in no way ready to fix a little lunch.

Wondering how the heck she was going to get out of this one, Hannah went downstairs with him to the big kitchen. As he pointed out the location of all the unassembled food components, she made an effort to memorize everything he said.

Flour in the big canister, sugar next, then coffee. Cans of food in the pantry.

The peanut butter jar greeted her like an old friend in a world of strangers. She wanted to embrace it. She didn’t see any blackberry jam, but there was a big jar of strawberry preserves. That would do. She could make lunch after all.

“Through that door is the laundry room and a big freezer with plenty of meat and vegetables.”

She could check that for the possibility of froze, dinners.

“I know it’s late,” Clayton said, standing behind her, his warm breath stirring her hair. “You don’t need to come up with anything elaborate. We’ve been eating sandwiches so long, anything else will be welcome.”

Anything else? So much for her lunch plans. Back to square one.

For a long moment he didn’t move, just stood there behind her so close she could smell his leather, sunshine and warm earth scent that teased her senses and somehow made her feel even more confused.

He needed to leave so she could catch her breath. So she could go upstairs and look up lunch in the cookbook. Surely he didn’t plan to wait around for her to make the meal? How in the world was she supposed to look it up then figure out how to do it with him watching?

“So,” he said, “what do you need to get started?”

She turned to look at him. He was planning to wait around and watch her.

In desperation she pointed upward. “I need—”

“Oh, sure,” he said, stepping back. “You do remember where the bathroom is?”

The bathroom? Oh, well. It didn’t matter what he thought she was doing as long as she could get to that cookbook. Hannah nodded, then darted away and charged upstairs.

She opened the small bag and hurriedly flipped the cookbook open to the index, to the L’s.

Liver…surely they wouldn’t expect her to make that.

Lobster…oh, she loved lobster thermidor. When she’d lived at home, she’d frequently asked their cook to make it. This wasn’t going to be so tough after all.

Lunch dishes. There it was! She turned excitedly to the page.

Soup and sandwich. No, that wouldn’t do. Clayton had nixed the sandwiches.

Pasta salad. Perfect! She loved the colorful curly pasta and all the little bits of goodies.

If she could program a computer, surely she could do this. Other people cooked all the time.

She winced at that thought, her parents’ oftrepeated statements playing again in her head about what other people could do. All your friends have learned to dance. All your friends can make small talk with the guests at parties and dinners. All your friends make their parents proud of them.

Being able to understand advanced calculus and quantum physics or program a computer hadn’t helped her then.

But now she had specific directions, and she could follow directions, she told herself reassuringly.

The recipe purported to be adequate for four people, so she’d better double it to feed seven. She read it twice, carefully doubling and memorizing every measurement, every detail.

Clayton smiled eagerly at her when she came back down to the kitchen. He had a nice smile. His white teeth made his tan look even more golden and turned the crinkles around his eyes into sunbursts. For a brief, unreal instant, she fantasized that the sparkle in those eyes was for her, but she knew it was only because he was hungry, and he expected her to feed him. Her own lips turned upward at that ridiculous thought.

His expression seemed to soften as if a haze settled around his face. “Nice.” He spoke the single word quietly, almost indistinctly. It sounded like nice, but that made no sense. It was completely out of context.

“Ice?” she questioned. That would be logical since they were dealing with food.

“Huh?”

“Rice?” she guessed desperately. “Mice?” Surely not.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. “What do you need first?”

“Pasta,” she said, hoping he’d forget about the rice…or those mice. “A sixteen-ounce package of pasta.” Maybe he’d leave once he was sure she knew where things were located.

“Pasta?” He opened the pantry door, reached behind some boxes and came out with a huge package of spaghetti. “Like this?”

She shook her head. “No. Curly, colored pasta.” She moved to check in the pantry herself, but he moved at the same time…directly into contact with her. Her hands went up in automatic defense and encountered soft, warm denim with the feel of solid muscle beneath—Clayton’s chest. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she felt his hands on her shoulders, steadying himself.

The hot blood rushed to her face, to her hands where they touched him, to her shoulders where he touched her. Every one of those spots felt much warmer than 98.6 degrees. Was this how cases of spontaneous combustion occurred?

“Sorry,” he mumbled, backing away, taking his odd heat-producing properties with him. “I’d, uh, better go check on the guys. Tell them lunch is on the way. In, what, half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”

“Forty-five minutes. Sure.” She had no idea if that would be long enough, but she’d have agreed to anything to get him to leave.

His going made the kitchen seem much larger and more open. She could breathe deeply now. She’d surely be able to get through this cooking ordeal a lot more easily.

So why did the large, open kitchen feel so empty?

Shrugging off the inexplicable feeling, she started scrounging through the pantry, looking for pasta. She couldn’t find any of the colorful, curly kind, but she did unearth a couple of packages of macaroni. A monochrome start, but the bits of olives and other components should liven it up.

Following the advice of the recipe, she checked the package directions for the pasta and carefully measured enough water for both packages into a pan, then set it on the stove to boil.

This was easy. Why had she worried? She was going to be able to do this.

In her mind’s eye she could see Clayton sitting at the head of the big oak dining table they’d passed on their way to the kitchen. She could see a big smile spreading across his face, tilting the corners of his eyes, as he tasted his first bite of her pasta salad.

Stop that! she ordered herself. What was the matter with her? She was no longer an insecure teenager, falling all over herself in a vain attempt to please everybody she met. She had only to please herself. Clayton’s opinion wasn’t important.

She focused on the macaroni package directions. Cook six to nine minutes or until tender.

Six to nine minutes or until tender? What the heck kind of direction was that? A thirty-three and one-third percent variance with an open-ended conclusion? She could just see herself writing instructions for her computer games like that. Click left mouse button six to nine times or until something you like happens.

This cooking certainly was an inexact science. In fact, anything that nebulous could hardly be called science at all. It was more like alchemy.

But somehow she had to figure out these ambiguous instructions.

After all, if she didn’t prove herself competent, why would he listen to anything she had to say about his grandfather? That was absolutely the only reason she wanted to impress him.

Clayton washed up at the outside faucet down by the barn with the rest of the men.

“Okay, fellas,” he said, trying to locate a semiclean spot on the community towel to dry his own hands, “the new cook got here a little late, so lunch won’t be anything spectacular, but at least it won’t be sandwiches.”

Mugger and Dub threw their hats into the air, Bear punched Cruiser on the shoulder, Bob slapped his knee and yelled “Hot Damn!” and everyone cheered.

“And one more thing.” They quieted immediately, and Clayton realized he’d used his this-is-important-so-you’d-damn-well-better-listen-close voice. Well, it was important. “Hannah—Ms. Lindsay—is a little different from Mrs. Grogan. She’s, uh, quieter, younger, prettier—”

Cheers broke out again, interspersed with whistles.

“The first one of you gets out of line with her, I’ll break your face.” The words came out loud and harsh.

Silence ensued as the men looked at each other.

“No problem, man,” Bob mumbled.

“You got it, boss,” Mugger agreed.

He hadn’t intended to snap at them even before they’d done anything. On the other hand, better before than after. Hannah’s big brown eyes were bottomless pools of innocence. If one of the men did anything to destroy that innocence, he’d do worse than break the guy’s face.

“Ms. Lindsay is, um, different,” he said.

“You already told us that,” Bear growled.

“I said she was different from Mrs. Grogan. Now I’m saying she’s different from everybody.”

“You mean she’s not right in the head?”

Clayton flinched at the brutal description. Hannah wasn’t crazy. At least, he didn’t think so.

“She’s different,” he concluded obscurely. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

“All right!”

The men followed him up to the house and into the dining room where the table was set with his mother’s dishes with their elaborate floral design. His fault. He should have told her to use the plain brown ones he’d bought after his mother moved out. Well, it wouldn’t hurt the men to eat off pink and purple flowers. They probably wouldn’t even notice in their excitement over their first hot meal in two days.

“Where’s the food?” Bear demanded.

“Sit down. She’ll be out in a minute,” Clayton said confidently. But he didn’t feel all that confident. No tempting odors drifted from the kitchen the way they did when Mrs. Grogan cooked.

Hannah appeared in the kitchen door carrying a serving bowl with a spoon sprouting from it. Her hair looked even wilder than usual, and her eyes had a glassy look. She hesitated, her gaze taking in the ruffians who were talking and laughing as they settled into the chairs at the table. Her entrance froze them in place, Cruiser and Dub already poised over their chairs.

“Ms. Hannah Lindsay, this skinny guy here is Dub. The big, fierce one, with so much grizzled hair and beard all you can see is the tip of his nose, is Bear. The one with the trim little gambler’s mustache is Mugger. The long drink of water is Cruiser, and the redhead’s Bob.”

Hannah’s gaze went from one person to the next, all around the table, her expression getting wilder with each cowboy. When she came to Clayton, a bright red spot appeared on each smooth cheek. “Lunch,” she blurted, holding the bowl before her.

Cruiser ran to take it. “Let me help you, ma’am.”

Hannah’s face relaxed enough to allow a tentative smile as she surrendered the bowl. Yes, she definitely had a nice smile. “Thank you,” she said in a relatively normal voice.

Dub stumbled from his half-sitting position and pulled out her chair at the end of the table nearest the kitchen.

“Thank you,” she said again, looking and sounding a little more confident. She was communicating coherently, and the blood was redistributing itself from her cheeks to the rest of her body. That was an improvement.

Cruiser scooped out a large spoonful of food from the bowl and plopped it onto his plate. Macaroni mixed with bits of black, green and red sprawled among the painted flowers. Nobody said a word as all attention turned to the concoction.

“What is it?” Cruiser finally asked.

“Pasta salad.” Her voice was again strained as she dipped her head, letting her hair fall over her face.

“Pasta salad,” Clayton repeated before any of the men could say something to upset her more. “Great. This should give us a chance to cool down. Pass that bowl over here.”

Knowing the others would be watching him and following his example, he scooped out a generous serving. “Looks terrific.”

He took a bite of the stuff. The pasta was way past al dente. In fact, it was more like al mushe.

He looked down to the other end of the table. Hannah was watching him expectantly, her heart in her eyes.

“Good,” he said, thankful he’d had a new lightning rod installed last year. That kind of a lie could bring down divine retribution. “Needs a little salt. Maybe a little picante sauce.” Texas picante sauce could cover a multitude of bad flavors, or in this case, no flavor.

The men poured on the picante sauce and ate without grumbling, but he was sure he’d hear about it later.

They’d just have to cut her a little slack. She hadn’t had a lot of time to cook today, and maybe her last employer liked overcooked pasta salad for lunch. She’d never worked on a ranch before. He’d have to explain to her that they preferred heartier meals.

She’s not going to make it, a little voice nagged in the back of his mind. You knew that from the minute she walked in here. Roses bloom in town, along the river. Prickly pear cactus is the only flower that thrives out here.

He knew that little voice was probably right, but he ordered it to shut up anyway.

“All right, boys. Back to work.” He folded his napkin and laid it on the table. “I’ll be down to the corral in a few minutes.” He slid back his chair.

Hannah watched the other cowboys push away from the table. They’d been every bit as gracious as any of her mother’s guests, but she knew they were disappointed.

She grabbed an armload of dishes and ran into the kitchen, away from the censure that was in the air if not actually spoken.

She’d blown it again.

She’d wanted to run out of the room the minute Clayton had looked up with a pained expression and declared her meal to be “good.” But she’d had to sit at the table while everyone poured on enough picante sauce to drown any noodles that had survived her excessive boiling, then choked down the horrible mess.

She couldn’t go through that much stress again. She had to work up the courage to talk to Clayton about his grandfather then escape before dinner.

How did some people manage to cook three of those things a day?

Clayton came through the kitchen door carrying the empty serving bowl.

“Have you got a minute?” he asked, setting the dish on the counter. “We need to talk about something.”

Hannah couldn’t remember any good conversations that began with that statement. Here it came. He was going to fire her. She wouldn’t be able to help Samuel.

But what really clenched her stomach into hard little knots was knowing Clayton viewed her as a failure.

Damn it, why did she care what he thought of her?

She braced herself, straightening her back and looking him in the eye. “Yes?”

Clayton stood for a moment gazing at her, his eyelids drifting to half-closed. He lifted one hand and pushed her hair back from the side of her face, his fingers barely stroking her cheek.

Her breath caught in her throat. The touch set off little sparks, and she wanted him to continue doing it.

When his hand fell away, her belligerent hair sprang right back as if his fingers had never been there. But the skin he’d stroked remembered. Something inside her remembered exactly the way his touch had felt.

“You smell like roses,” he said softly, his lips forming the words as though caressing them, and she wondered how those lips would feel if they replaced his fingers on her skin.

“My grandfather loved roses,” she whispered, trying to force her thoughts away from such fanciful thoughts. “He—”

She couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say. The expression on Clayton’s face took her words away. Took her breath away for that matter. He looked like one of those men in the movies just before they kissed the girl.

She was fantasizing again! Why would Clayton want to kiss her?

But what if he did and found out that she could no more kiss than she could sing, dance, play piano or make small talk at parties? She’d die of embarrassment if that happened!

“What?” she croaked.

He blinked. “Huh? What?”

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“Oh. Yeah. I did.” He drew a hand over his own cheek and chin—the same hand he’d touched her hair and cheek with. “I wanted to talk to you about…oh, yeah. About lunch. I know this is a big change for you from your last job.” That was the quintessential understatement! “But there’s a little difference between cooking for a retired man and cooking for a bunch of cowboys. We do a lot of physical labor, and we like our meals to be hearty. Roasts, chicken, meatloafs, bacon and eggs for breakfast, things like that. Protein. Food for energy.”

Of course he hadn’t been thinking about kissing her. He’d only been thinking about criticizing her. Clayton sounded just like Hannah’s dance teacher after she’d broken her toe in class, like her voice teacher when he told her he’d had to buy ear plugs and hide the crystal, like her parents who’d finally given up on her and let her go her own way.

Well, she thought, thrusting her jaw forward and clenching her fists, she’d left all that behind her. She wasn’t going to give in to it again. Her own way hadn’t been so bad.

“We usually eat around seven. Can you get something together by then?” he asked.

“Of course I can,” she blurted, surprising herself with her bravado. “And I won’t break my toe doing it, either!”