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“Yeah, I know. I’ve already made my choice. Now it’s your turn.”
He scouted the table. “Where’s a fork?”
“Oh, no. I don’t want you to see who’s made what in case you know these people. I want only the best for Alana and Trent.”
“What? You think I’d choose a cake because it’s someone I know?”
“You might play favorites, and so I’m going to blindfold you.”
He gaped, but only for a moment. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Come on.”
She couldn’t be serious.
He glanced at the cake in question. “Just pull them out of the boxes so I can’t tell which one came from which store.”
She seemed startled by his suggestion. She, too, glanced at the boxes before turning back to him with a frown. “What’s the fun in that?” And she sounded so disappointed it was almost comical. “C’mon.” She tipped her head sideways and gave him a look meant to charm him into cooperating. “You need to loosen up. Even Rana thought it was a good idea.”
“Then I suggest you play pin the tail on the cake batter with Rana.”
She plopped down in the chair next to him, and if he were honest with himself, he could admit to feeling just a little bad about spoiling her mood. Just a little.
“Okay, fine. Open your mouth.”
“Excuse me?”
She picked up a fork, opened one of the boxes, then stabbed a piece of cake. “Open.”
“I’m not three years old.”
“Of course not, but you’re still going to do a blind taste test. Well, sort of blind. Here. Open.”
She adopted such a look of ferocious determination that he found himself opening his mouth despite himself. Sugar and lemon and vanilla filled his mouth. Cabe suddenly felt self-conscious as he chewed.
“Tastes like cake.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Her left brow lifted. “Well?”
“I guess it’s okay.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Wow. What a ringing endorsement. Okay. Next.”
Before she could stuff another forkful in his mouth, he lifted a hand. “Why don’t you and Rana just decide?”
“Because you’re a part of this wedding, too, and with Trent and Alana not here, we’re it. So, open.”
Once again, he did as instructed even though a voice inside his head told him to put his foot down. Utter nonsense.
But the piece of cake she fed him was good.
“Oooh. You like that one, don’t you?”
“Wait,” he said through a mouth full of white cake with some kind of strawberry frosting that was so good he wanted another bite. “What makes you think I like it?”
She reached for another box. “You’re like a newspaper. I can read the headlines from a mile away. Here’s another one.”
How the hell did she do it? How had she gotten him to eat—almost literally—out of her hand, and why was he fighting so hard to keep his face free of expression as he tasted the next piece?
“You don’t like that one, either. Okay. Next.”
“What?” He swallowed. Actually, he almost gagged. Ugh. Nasty, greasy frosting. “You didn’t even give me time to taste it.”
“I could tell the minute your mouth closed, and I don’t blame you for disliking that one. I didn’t like it, either.”
“Ah,” he muttered. “So you’re the one that’s biased. See. You should just decide for me.”
“I’m not biased. Some of the cakes I really liked and other ones I didn’t. Rana, too. You’re the tiebreaker.”
She held up the fork again. He eyed the piece she was about to feed him. After that last one, he should be more cautious.
“I’m not a big fan of cream fillings,” he admitted, eyeing the white cake and white frosting.
“Me, neither, but taste it just the same. You might be surprised.”
But she missed, her other hand instantly lifting to help push the cake into his mouth, her fingers grazing his lips.
He nearly gasped.
Zapped by an electric fence, that was what it felt like. As if a million joules of energy stole his breath away. He froze.
“Well?”
His taste buds failed to function, too. So did his heart. And his lungs.
“Good,” he managed to mumble.
“Just good?”
It took every ounce of control not to jerk away. Not to jump to his feet and dash away.
“I like the strawberry one better.”
She nodded. He sat there.
What the hell was that?
But he knew. That was more than mere sexual attraction. That was want. That was need. That was trouble.
Chapter Five
He bolted.
That was the only way to describe what happened after he tasted the last piece of cake. The man didn’t even have the common decency to listen to the music she’d downloaded, just offered a flip, “Have Rana do it.”
She’d touched him. And it had freaked him out.
She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told him she could read his face, so as she climbed into bed that night, she brought up the memory of his face and reexamined every angle.
Instant awareness. Physical attraction. Desire.
It’d been all there, plain as day, and it had taken her completely by surprise as the reason for his animosity became patently clear.
He liked her. Liked liked her. As in he wanted her in his bed.
The thought made her giggle like a schoolgirl, and she rolled onto her side, causing Ramses to let out a mew of protest.
“Oh, stop it,” she warned the cat. “You know you want to cuddle with me.”
The cat started purring, but only after Saedra stroked his back. Silly cat. Typical male. Complain, complain, when really, deep inside, they wanted attention. That was Cabe’s problem, too. She wondered if he was in his own bed, below her, thinking about her.
Of course he was.
That made her giggle some more. It wasn’t funny, though, she sternly told herself. The man had issues. Major, major issues that would make him horrible boyfriend material.
She should ignore him.
That’s what she told herself as she continued to pet Ramses. Now that she knew he suffered from severe sexual frustration, maybe she should cut him some slack, too. It’d been months since she’d had a sexual partner herself. Actually, more like a year. Who had time for relationships when you ran a successful business like her Buckaroo Barbecue, or his New Horizons Ranch? It was only recently that she’d had time to even think about the opposite sex, and then only in terms of what Trent might like for a wedding present. If she were honest with herself, she could do with some good, old-fashioned sex herself, but not with Cabe.
Why not with Cabe?
Stupid, ridiculous thought, she told herself, her eyes drifting closed. Her subconscious picked up on her thoughts about Cabe and ran with it. She dreamed that night: her fantasies featured a dark-haired man with sideburns and a toned upper body that, in her dreams at least, felt as soft as silk yet was as hard as iron.
“This is not good,” she told Ramses as she dressed the next morning. The cat sat on the windowsill, cleaning himself in a patch of sunlight, and completely ignoring her. “Not that you care.”
Rana must have still been asleep, since Saedra encountered only silence as she made her way downstairs. The girl was on Christmas vacation until after the wedding. At least the teenager could serve as a buffer. This morning Saedra needed to call the rental place in Reno. And then there was the issue of Christmas and the decorations, which Rana had told her were stored in the attic. As luck would have it, the entrance was right by her room, through what looked like a pantry door next to the stairwell. Might as well see what they had. The wedding would be on Christmas Day and she planned to do it up right. It wouldn’t be a winter wedding without them.
Saedra marveled when she opened the trapdoor. It wasn’t really an attic space, but more like a room. Skylights illuminated a crawl space big enough for someone to stand in and wide enough to fit a bed and a dresser. To her left were blue plastic tubs labeled Christmas, Fall, Spring, Summer... Saedra having no doubt they were decorations. To her right were bags of what looked like clothes.
Creeping forward, she peered inside one of them, taking a step back when she realized what they were.
His wife’s clothes. Bags and bags of them.
Her stomach curdled with sadness as she looked around, imagining the pain Cabe and Rana must have gone through as they’d bagged up not just Kimberly’s things, but Brayden’s things, as well. Sure, she’d lost Dustin last year, but he’d been a friend, nothing like losing a wife and a brother on the same day.
“No wonder you’re such a mess,” she told a Cabe that was nowhere in sight.
Amazing that Rana hadn’t been more affected. Alana had told her the girl suffered from horrible nightmares. It was one of the reasons Alana had insisted she and Trent would spend their summers at New Horizons Ranch. Cabe had coped as well as could be expected, Alana had also told her, but clearly his scars ran deep, too. It’d been years since his wife’s death. Years. Clearly, he still wasn’t over it.
Maybe she could change all that. Maybe what this place needed was her, someone who had lost her parents at a young age, but who had gone on to survive despite her grief. Yes, she’d ended up with a twisted sense of humor. Maybe even a macabre sense of humor, but she’d learned the hard way that death was a part of life. It sucked, but if you didn’t move on, it would bring you down.
Like Cabe.
So. Taking a deep breath, she turned toward the boxes. In for a penny, in for a pound. Rana had given her the go-ahead. That was good enough for Saedra. Cabe might not like it, but he’d learn to deal.
An hour later she stood in the middle of Cabe’s study, scanning the open tubs of Christmas decorations and wondering where to start.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She jumped.
“Get the hell away from that stuff.”
She’d known this wouldn’t be easy, but she actually felt the blood drain from her face at Cabe’s tone of voice.
“Hey, Cabe.”
Smile.
Beneath his black cowboy hat his blue eyes blazed. He wore a brown Carhartt jacket and matching pants tucked into leather hunting boots, and Saedra thought he couldn’t look more masculine—and more furious—if he tried.
Smile bigger.
But it was hard not to blanch. Even beneath his jacket she could tell his shoulders were as tightly stretched as a bow.
Dear me.
“Put. Those. Back.”
She glanced down at the boxes. “The Christmas decorations? Why?”
Pretending innocence was not the correct thing to do. That became apparent the moment the words slid from her mouth because, if he’d looked furious before, he appeared positively enraged now.
“You know damn well why.”
Yes, she did.
“But we need these to decorate for the wedding.”
“No, you don’t.” His jaw ticked all the way up to his sideburns.
The smile on her face slowly wilted. “But if we don’t use Christmas decorations, people might think it strange.”
“Get them out of here.”
He spun on his heel. Saedra’s spine chose that moment to collapse. A few seconds later, she heard his footsteps on the stairway. Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Oh, dear.”
