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“I’m so glad you had time to meet me in town today,” Annie enthused as she gave Laura an affectionate hug. “Sitting and gabbing is going to be just like old times.”
When Annie led the way into Hoagie’s Diner, Laura set aside her frustration of trying to gain Wade’s respect and his ongoing attempts to convince her to find another job. Dining with Annie was the distraction she needed.
Laura studied her surroundings as she plunked down at the corner booth of the busy café. The place was filled to capacity during the lunch hour and two harried-looking waitresses were darting from one booth to the next, taking and delivering orders. The mom-and-pop diner was doing a driving business and the smell of hamburgers and fries caused Laura’s stomach to growl in eager anticipation.
“You’ll love the food here,” Annie assured her. “Best hamburgers, chicken fried steak and cream gravy in three counties. And you’re going to love Hoot’s Roost, too.”
“It’s definitely a change from Denver,” Laura commented as she perused the fifties, malt-shop style café then glanced down at the laminated menu. “But I love the wide-open spaces here and I’m enjoying this new feeling of independence.”
Annie raked her shiny mahogany-colored hair away from her face and grinned. “I’ll bet your brothers have been calling every other day to check on you.”
Laura nodded her thanks to the waitress who set two glasses of ice water on the Formica tabletop. “Actually my brothers have been away on a business trip so I’ve had several days of reprieve. I sent them postcards to inform them that I’ve moved. But I fully expect them to call to grill me about my summer job when they return to Denver.”
Annie sipped her water and her hazel eyes glinted with curiosity. “So…how’s it going with Wade?”
She shrugged evasively. “It’s a job.”
“Yeah, right. Like you didn’t notice the man’s so good-looking that he could jump-start a woman in a coma. He’s a babe magnet, same as his cousins. I should be so lucky to be surrounded by the gorgeous Ryder cousins. Sounds like tough work if you can get it.”
Annie sighed dreamily. “Even when the Ryder cousins were in high school they were gorgeous, athletic and in great demand. Even though I was just in grade school at the time, I loved to watch them play basketball, baseball and rodeo. They were something to see in action, lemme tell ya.”
“Well, Wade might’ve been a sports dynamo back then but now he’s two-hundred-plus pounds of bad attitude,” Laura confided to her good friend. “He doesn’t want me in his house and I can supply you with a ten-minute list of his offenses if you’re interested. Even worse, when he goads me I sass him right back, without showing an ounce of my former restraint. The man is turning me into the worst version of myself.”
Annie shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s probably good practice for you. I always thought you were too restrained when your brothers were breathing down your neck, trying to run your life. You just caved in and let them intimidate you. As far as Wade’s concerned, it’s understandable that he doesn’t want a woman in his house after he made the mistake of marrying the original bitch goddess of Hoot’s Roost. Bobbie Lynn didn’t make life easy for him, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth about women in general. I heard recently that she’s already ditched her second hubby and moved on to number three.”
“Bobbie Lynn, huh?” Laura mused aloud.
Annie grinned wryly. “You know the type. Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen and voted most popular girl on campus. All the guys in high school went gaga over her. When Wade returned from college she made herself instantly available by dropping her current fiancé like a hot potato. Not long after Wade and Bobbie Lynn married, while he and his cousins were traveling the rodeo circuit, she started sneaking around on him.”
“No wonder Wade swore off women,” Laura mused aloud. “Bobbie Lynn obviously has fidelity issues.”
“You can say that again! You’d think Bobbie Lynn would’ve recognized the good deal she had going, but she was never known for her commodity of brains, only her eye-catching looks and seductive wiles. I think she even tried to hit on Wade’s cousins, but they have a hard-and-fast rule about remaining loyal to one another,” Annie informed her. “Even Quint drew the line and wouldn’t budge when Bobbie Lynn practically threw herself at him. No matter what the gossip circulating about Quint being a ladies’ man, he does have scruples, so don’t let anyone around here tell you differently.”
Laura grinned in amusement. “Is there anyone in this town whose background you don’t know?”
“Nope,” Annie replied breezily. “I’ve lived here all my life. I know who’s related to whom and which branch of which family tree juts out from what direction. It helps to understand the dynamics of this podunk town when you’re teaching school here. It prevents you from shooting off your mouth and offending someone’s shirttail cousins.”
Laura must have looked a bit shell-shocked because Annie leaned over to pat her hand consolingly. “Not to worry. I’ll be there at school to debrief you when your students troop into your classroom. Of course, my music room is at the opposite end of the hall from the math and computer rooms.” She grinned playfully. “We wouldn’t want to break your students’ concentration while they’re calculating square roots, ya know. All that screeching and howling in my classroom would be a distraction. But I can be at your end of the hall in just over a minute if you need me.”
Laura slumped against the back of the vintage vinyl booth. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I actually packed up, moved away from my brothers and have a life of my own now. The next order of business is to convince the superintendent and school board that I can transform all my students into Nobel prize-winning mathematicians…What if I can’t?”
Annie chuckled. “You’ll do fine here. What happened to your self-confidence, girlfriend?”
“Wade has been trouncing all over it,” she muttered.
“Well, he’s an idiot if he doesn’t know what a great deal he’s got in you,” Annie said loyally.
“Maybe you should tell him that. I don’t think he’s figured it out by himself.” Laura shut her mouth when the waitress reappeared to take their order.
When Mildred—according to the plastic name tag pinned on her Pepto-Bismol-pink blouse—scuttled off, Annie leaned forward, all eyes, all ears and profound concentration. “Okay, what’s up with Wade?”
Laura hadn’t meant to unload on her friend, but she felt the urge to vent her frustration. “Well, for starters, he’s determined to dislike me. He nearly came unglued when I offered to give him a massage to help him relax. Sheesh, the way he carried on you’d think I possessed the touch of death. He rarely eats in the same room with me and you wouldn’t think it’d kill him to say thanks for dinner or for laundering his clothes or cleaning his house every once in a while. In fact, he bites backs the words please and thank you when they occasionally start to slip out.”
Annie slouched in the booth, nodded her head and said sagely, “Ah-ha.”
“Ah-ha, what? What’s that mean, Ms. I’m-Privy-To-Background-Information-On-Every-Resident-of-Podunk City?” Laura blew out a frustrated breath. “See there? What’d I tell you? Wade’s bad habit of being flippant and sarcastic is rubbing off on me.”
Annie grinned wryly. “Jeez, Laura, surely a smart woman like you can figure out what’s going on with you and Wade.”
“Well, color me stupid, but I don’t get it. All I know is that Bobbie Lynn disillusioned him. He mistrusts those of us of the female persuasion and I have this ridiculous obsession to prove to him that I’m not a blasted thing like her.”
“I’m no psychiatrist, but I’d say he finds you extremely attractive and that worries him so he’s trying to build walls to keep you at arm’s length.”
“Phfft!” Laura erupted. “Your analysis is way off base. He just doesn’t want me around, no matter what I try to do to earn his trust and friendship.”
Annie arched a delicate brow. “And you’re trying hard to win his trust and friendship because…?”
Laura squirmed uneasily and sent a prayer of thanks winging heavenward when Mildred returned with their burgers and fries, buying Laura time to collect her thoughts and her composure.
“Because?” Annie prompted.
She should’ve known Annie wouldn’t drop the subject. The woman, after all, had the tenacity of a pit bull.
When Laura pretended an interest in her basket of French fries, Annie snapped her fingers, demanding attention. “Because…?”
“You’re a real pest,” Laura grumbled.
“No, I’m not,” Annie replied. “I’m your best friend. I care about you and I feel responsible for convincing you to move here to teach. I also feel responsible because I’m the one who lined you up with this summer job when Quint and Vance were asking around town about a temp housekeeper. And if I were having man problems, I’d spill my guts to you so you could make me feel better. But since my boyfriend and I are getting along dandy fine, I don’t need a sounding board like you do. So, admit it. You’re sort of interested in Wade, aren’t you?”
“That’s ridiculous.” The lie rang false the instant it popped off her tongue. “Besides, I just moved here.”
“Uh-huh,” Annie said.
Then Laura said, “I’m starting a new job in the school system.”
And Annie said, “Uh-huh.”
Laura said, “I’m not looking to start a relationship.”
Then Annie said, “Uh-huh.”
“And most certainly not with Count Grouchiness.”
“No, of course not,” Annie patronized, lips twitching.
“Clam up and eat, Annie,” Laura muttered darkly.
Annie threw up her hands, as if held at gunpoint. “Fine, but you need to brush up on your geography so you’ll realize this is the state of Oklahoma, not the state of Denial.”
“Cute.”
“Thanks. I like to think so,” she said, fluffing her hair and batting her lashes.
Laura couldn’t stay aggravated with Annie. Reluctantly she smiled and Annie smiled back and all was right with the world again. Even if Wade Ryder wanted to drive her away and her awareness of him just kept mushrooming from one day to the next. She couldn’t help thinking that beyond that six-feet-three-inches high and five-feet thick wall Wade had erected around his emotions there was a man she’d really like if he’d open up and share a small part of himself with her.
After their tasty meal, Annie offered to give Laura a tour of the town. She pointed out the tag agency so Laura could get her new driver’s license. She introduced her to the pharmacist at the drugstore, the owner of the hardware store, the furniture store and every other business owner in town.
Laura and Annie ended up in the town square where a concrete hoot owl in perpetual flight rose above the gurgling circular fountain. They treated themselves to snow cones from the sidewalk vender and sat down to rest after their hike. Annie’s boyfriend stopped by on his way into the courthouse and chatted a few minutes before tending his errands.
The afternoon spent with Annie was exactly what Laura needed to revive her spirits and regroup before purchasing groceries and supplies and heading back to engage in another verbal battle with Wade. Of course, there was the off chance that she’d get lucky and return home to discover that Wade had died of rabies during her absence, she mused with a wicked grin.
4
TIME HAD GOTTEN COMPLETELY away from Laura while gabbing with Annie. With a heavy foot on the accelerator Laura zoomed back to the ranch, knowing she’d probably catch hell from Wade for getting a late start on supper. The man didn’t need another excuse to criticize her.
According to Annie, Laura should continue swapping saucy retorts with Wade, just to let him know he couldn’t drive her away. Fine, she could do that. It sharpened her wits, after all, but she’d rather call a truce and be herself rather than being en guarde, lunging and parrying in verbal swordplay.
Arms laden with groceries, supplies and the potted plants she’d picked up on impulse, Laura struggled through the front door to see Wade lounging on his leather throne, surfing the TV channels. She ignored him, glancing instead at the closed drapes. She’d flung them open wide before leaving the ranch that morning. Now they were shut tightly, enshrouding the room in gloom and doom.
“What happened, Seymour? Did you get lost?” Wade asked. “I knew I should’ve given you a compass and drawn you a map.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you looming there in the shadows,” she tossed back flippantly as she juggled the paper sacks and plastic bags in both arms. Four more sacks dangled from her fingertips.
“I distinctly remember asking you not to yank open all the drapes and allow the glaring sunlight in here.”
“Right, Count Drac, I forgot that blood-sucking vampires prefer cryptlike darkness,” she countered as she headed for the kitchen without glancing in Wade’s direction. “Now where’d I put that stake I intended to drive through your heart? It’s never around when I need it.”
He ignored her taunt. “Why’d you change the furniture in here? I nearly broke my other leg when I rounded the corner, expecting the furniture to be exactly where I set it.”
“Well,” she said, halting in the middle of the room. “According to feng shui—”
“Who the hell is he? And what does he know about rearranging my ranch house!” he blustered.
“Feng shui is the Chinese philosophy of interior design,” she explained.
He let loose with a disgusted snort. Surprise, surprise.
“It’s based on the theory that if you change your environment, you can change aspects of your life.”
“I liked my life just fine until you got here,” he grumped.
“Well, feng shui will make you feel better,” she insisted, “because now this room is well balanced and well lighted—or it would be if you’d open the drapes. This room creates and promotes the flow of positive energy to counter your negativity.”
His response was another disgruntled snort.
“So, how’d the roundup and branding go today?” she asked.
“Fine. Quint got kicked in the shin while inoculating one of my calves,” he reported.
“I’m sure that made your day.”
“Damn, Seymour, whaddya do? Have your tongue sharpened while you were in town?” he called after her.
“Ah, you noticed. Glad to know I didn’t waste my money.”
“Are we eating tonight? Or am I supposed to chew on my fingernails to stave off the hunger pangs?” he asked.
Laura dumped the sacks on the kitchen counter and grinned to herself. She wasn’t sure, but the bite in his words didn’t seem as sharp as it once was. Now his tone leaned more toward teasing humor. Could it be that Wade actually missed having her around to torment and was actually glad to have her back? Naw, must be her imagination and Annie’s ridiculous notion that beneath all that razzing and taunting Wade liked her and was determined not to let it show.
“Supper will be ready at the usual time, Your Majesty,” she called to him. “Oh, and before I forget to tell you, I took the liberty of inviting Duff up to the house to dine with me tomorrow night.”
“Liberties aren’t included in your job description,” Wade threw back.
“Too bad. He’s going to teach me to play poker, guzzle beer and smoke cigars. He also promised to teach me how to two-step later in the week so Annie and I can go honky-tonkin’ Saturday night. She’s gonna set me up with a hot date.”
“You don’t have to shout,” Wade muttered as he propped himself against the kitchen wall.
“Sorry, I thought you were still in the living room.”
“I wouldn’t advise accepting any date Annie Nelson arranges for you. She has lousy taste in men.”
Laura paused from sorting and arranging the cold food in the fridge and flung him an annoyed glance. “There was nothing wrong with her taste in men during college. I met her boyfriend, Mark Childress, this afternoon. I’d give him an eight on a scale of ten.”
“A five would be pushing it,” he remarked.
Laura let her appreciative gaze wander over Wade’s muscular physique, admiring the way he filled out his shirt and jeans. Annie was right. Wade Ryder oozed sex appeal. He was definitely beefcake material and she’d like to sneak another peek at all the rippling muscle and sinewy flesh concealed beneath his clothes.
“Depends on who you’re comparing him to,” she said belatedly. Compared to Wade, Mark wouldn’t register a three.
Whoa, don’t even start comparing other men to Wade, she cautioned herself. That implied Wade was the standard measure of excellence.
“What are you looking at, Seymour?” he questioned as he glanced curiously down his torso. “Did I button my shirt improperly?”
Laura snapped her attention back to the interior of the fridge and placed the food on the glass shelves. “Not to worry. You’re properly buttoned up, except for your lip and it would require surgery to keep that shut.”
“I’m trying to make friendly conversation.” He scowled at her and his thick brows flattened menacingly over his eyes.
Friendly? That’d be the day. “Don’t strain yourself, Ryder. You have enough injuries already,” she snapped.
He held his tongue so long that Laura glanced up to determine the problem. Her breath lodged in her throat when those laserlike green eyes zeroed in on her. His penetrating gaze made a thorough sweep of her knit blouse, denim shorts and the exposed length of her legs. She felt her body burn each place his riveting gaze touched. Was something going on here that she’d missed while she had her head stuck in the fridge? How could they possibly have gone from snappy repartee to this sizzling sensual awareness that leaped back and forth between them like two-twenty volts of electrical current?
One smoldering look from Wade and desire contracted inside her like a coil of fire. She’d never experienced anything remotely like this before.
Laura felt as if time had ground to a halt, as if the looks passing between them were trying to define themselves. Yet, she wasn’t sure she could correctly decode the message he was sending because she constantly received mixed signals from him. Nevertheless, she was helpless to restrain the feminine vibes her body bleeped at him. Just what the heck was going on between them? She wished she knew for certain.
Was it hot in here? Suddenly the heat seemed stifling and breathing was a real chore. Her gaze dropped to the sensuous curve of his mouth and Laura was struck by the tormenting realization that she was starving to death for a taste of him. She wondered what it would be like to exchange kisses rather than saucy retorts, wondered how it would feel to be pressed familiarly against that rock-solid body, despite his encumbering cast and sling.
Call her reckless and crazy but she’d really, really like to know how it felt to be kissed and held by him. For the sake of curiosity, if nothing else. Oh right, who was she kidding? Her curiosity wasn’t the only thing that was dying to find out how well he kissed.
