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Cliff froze. Had the word already spread he had a cover model working for him—temporarily? “Where’d you hear that?”
“Didn’t.” Larry got a Santa Claus twinkle in his eyes. “Whoever ironed your shirt scorched a big triangle right smack in the middle. Figured Sylvia wasn’t the culprit.”
Practically dislocating both his neck and his shoulder in order to look at his back, Cliff cursed. Why him? Why couldn’t some other man have been in line when they passed out an incompetent housekeeper, one who just happened to be the sexiest female this side of the Mississippi?
One who was definitely double trouble.
CLIFF CAME HOME on his dinner break and Tasha couldn’t decide if he looked sexiest dressed in jeans and a work shirt with his Stetson tipped back on his head at a rakish angle, or in his khaki sheriff’s uniform, tailored to fit his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Difficult decision, she thought as she watched him wash up at the kitchen sink.
“Hey, Daddy, what’s that on the back of your shirt?” Stevie asked. Sitting at the table opposite Melissa, his little legs were swinging back and forth expending nervous energy.
Cliff dried his hands with a towel. “Somebody was using an iron that was too hot.”
“Actually, I got distracted when Melissa fell off the porch swing and was screaming bloody murder.”
“Stevie pushed me,” Melissa said.
“Did not.”
Melissa held up her elbow. “I got an owie, Uncle Cliff. Wanna see?”
Tasha contemplated the back of Cliff’s shirt as he bent over to examine the Snoopy bandage. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“I think she’ll live,” Cliff said. In an easy gesture of affection, he brushed a quick kiss to Melissa’s elbow.
Tasha’s heart squeezed tight at the sight of his gentle caring. Just the way a father should be, except Melissa had never really known her daddy. “No, I meant your shirt.”
Eyeing her, Cliff took his place at the head of the table. “I’ll change after we eat. It’s an old Western custom that we don’t wear scorched shirts out in public, particularly when we may have to make an arrest. If the crooks get too many laughs, it makes them unruly.”
She flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “Who knows? You might start a new fad.”
A reluctant smile played around the corners of his mouth, and she noticed what really nice lips he had—not so full that he’d give sloppy kisses, but pleasantly soft, a shape hers could easily mold to. And that was a thought she shouldn’t be considering.
“Are we going to eat anytime soon?” he asked.
She gazed at his mouth for another long heartbeat, thinking—
“Mommy? You aren’t going to burn the dinner, are you?”
“No! Absolutely not.” Whirling, she grabbed a hot pad, opened the oven door and pulled out the chicken and rice casserole she’d been keeping warm. Not burned. A little dried around the edges maybe but no charcoal.
With a degree of pride, she put the casserole on the table and produced a big bowl of salad from the refrigerator. All the grocery store in town carried was iceberg lettuce and a little wilted Romaine—nothing resembling endive or alfalfa sprouts—but she’d chopped a half-dozen fresh veggies into the mix. Definitely nutritious.
Cliff ladled some of the casserole onto her plate, and she held up her hand to stop him from serving her too much. Then he served Melissa and Stevie.
“I thought we were having steak tonight.” He piled several spoonfuls on his own plate, no doubt relieved to see she’d made an adequate quantity to fill up a hardworking cowboy.
“Chicken’s better for you. The children, too.”
“Better not let the folks around here hear you say that. Those are fightin’ words in cattle country.”
She met his teasing blue eyes with a wink of her own. “I’ll be sure to keep my radical N’Yawker ideas to myself.”
As they ate dinner, the children were eager to relate their afternoon activities, which had included Stevie giving Melissa and Tasha a tour of the corral and barn. They’d met Peaches, the aging mare Cliff had apparently decided would be placid enough for Tasha to ride. Henry, the mule, appeared less tranquil, had big yellow teeth and a disposition that would make Manhattan’s pushiest panhandlers keep their distance.
“You catch any bad guys today?” Stevie finally asked.
“Not so far.” He forked the last of the rice on his plate into his mouth and eyed the remains in the casserole dish.
Tasha gestured for him to help himself to more.
“Ricky Monroe says there’s bank robbers ’n murderers ’n aliens all over the place.”
He reached over to ruffle his son’s hair. “Not in our town, bucko. You’re safe here.”
Smiling at the boy, Tasha said, “I’d say your friend Ricky has a vivid and rather gory imagination.”
“He says he’s seen ’em,” Stevie insisted.
“Well, if they come around here, they’ll have to watch out for me, won’t they?” Cliff patted the badge on his chest.
Tasha’s unwilling gaze shifted to his holstered weapon and she shuddered. She didn’t like guns. Or violence. And wondered how a man who was so obviously gentle could make his living carrying a gun.
Before he could finish off the casserole, he got a call on the radio he had strapped to his belt. An accident on the state highway east of Brady.
“Gotta go, kids.” Standing, he gave his son a quick kiss. “Do what Tasha tells you, okay?”
“I will, Daddy.”
He circled the table to give Melissa a kiss on the top of her head. “You, too, Little Miss Goldilocks.”
She giggled. “I have to. She’s my mommy.”
For a heart-stopping moment, Tasha thought he was going to kiss her, too. A husband and father going off to work. But then he stopped himself.
“Good dinner…considering the main course used to wear feathers.”
She laughed with him, but somewhere deep inside disappointment curled painfully through her. The family image they’d all created sitting around the kitchen table wasn’t real; he hadn’t kissed her.
It was hard to tell which one of those truths hurt the most. Although she recognized neither of them should.
CLIFF GOT BACK HOME after midnight and he was bone-weary. The accident near Brady hadn’t been too bad, only minor injuries, but it had taken him a long time to complete the paperwork after the tow truck had cleaned up the debris.
He slipped into the house through the back door, sensing the good kind of quiet that meant everything was all right. Smiling, he realized Tasha had left a light on for him in the living room. But he wasn’t prepared for what he found there.
She was curled with her legs under her, her head resting on the back of the couch, her hair feathering around her face. On the end table there was an open paperback book as though she’d just laid it down. She had one hand on his son, who was sleeping with his head on her lap, a light blanket arranged over his small form.
Tears stung at the backs of Cliff’s eyes. It should have been his wife Yvonne comforting Stevie against whatever fear had kept him awake. But it was another woman. A woman so classically beautiful, she took his breath away. He didn’t want to care about her, be attracted to her. Yet every instinct in his body contradicted what he kept telling himself. When it came to Tasha Papadakis Reynolds, he seemed incapable of rational thought.
He knelt beside her. Against his will, his fingers toyed with the ends of her hair—molten silver so fine, it must have been created by the gods.
In sleep, her lips were relaxed, inviting a kiss. Her lashes formed golden half circles beneath her eyes. A splash of color highlighted her cheeks, the makeup so subtle he wasn’t sure if what he saw was her natural color or something a brush created. And her sultry scent was all around her, enticing him.
Slowly, as if she were Sleeping Beauty awakening, her eyes opened. Blue magic the shade of midnight.
“Hi.” She blinked and ran her tongue across her lips.
He felt the gesture as powerfully as if she’d slid the zipper down on his trousers. “Hi, yourself.”
She roused slowly. “You’re home safe.”
“Hmm. No bad guys out there tonight.” Only traffic victims who shouldn’t have been driving so fast. “Stevie have a problem?”
“The alien space monsters were after him.”
He nodded. “It’s that Monroe kid. He’s in Stevie’s kindergarten class, or was. School’s out now.”
“Your son seems particularly sensitive.”
To Cliff’s surprise, she lifted her hand and placed it on his cheek, her fingers incredibly soft and caressing. Delicate like the wings of a butterfly.
“Like his dad, I suspect.” She breathed the words as warmly as a summer breeze.
Cliff knew he had to move away—away from her touch. Away from the feelings that swept through him. He’d been lonely for so damn long….
By sheer force of will, he stood. It wouldn’t be right for any of them if he followed his impulse to kiss her, to carry her into the guest bedroom and make love to her for the rest of the night.
Instead, he picked his son up in his arms. “Thanks for taking care of my boy.”
She gave him a lazy smile. “No problem. That’s my job.”
For now. She’d be leaving within weeks, maybe even days. They hadn’t even worked out the details and Stevie wasn’t her responsibility. Cliff didn’t want his son hurt when Tasha left. Keeping an emotional distance was better for all concerned.
She followed him into Stevie’s bedroom, where she pulled up the covers that Melissa had tossed aside.
Stevie muttered something unintelligible as Cliff tucked him in, then rolled to his side, curled into a ball, instantly falling back into deep sleep.
The night-light cast an orange glow in the room, enough to see the usual clutter had been straightened, the toy box lid closed, the wooden train set in its place on the brightly painted play table Cliff had constructed for Stevie’s second birthday, when he’d still had his mother.
Cliff lifted his eyes, meeting Tasha’s gaze. The room felt strangely warm, the air sultry with her seductive perfume. She stood on one side of the room, the twin beds between them. Yet he could almost feel the heat of her body touching him.
“Where’s Melissa’s father?” he asked quietly.
“I have no idea. Our marriage, such as it was, only lasted two years. He said he needed to find himself. The last I heard he was looking in Australia.”
Cliff couldn’t imagine walking out on his child—or on a wife like Tasha, for that matter.
“This guy you were engaged to…was Melissa upset when you broke it off?”
“Just the opposite.” With a quick check of her child, Tasha left her bedside, moving closer to Cliff as soundlessly as a moonbeam. “Nick wasn’t very fond of kids. She picked up on that right away, which should have given me a clue that he wasn’t exactly the best catch of the year.”
“Love can do funny things to people.”
She glanced away from him. “I’m not sure love was involved—for either of us. More like convenience, although I admit there was some sexual chemistry. He was my agent and business manager. We often traveled together. It was, well, easy to get involved. It was also a mistake.”
He’d like to be able to console her, but that would be a mistake, too.
With a shake of his head, he cleared the image of holding her in his arms. “Morning comes early around here. We’d better call it a night.”
“More roundups tomorrow?”
“One more day and we ought to have it licked. For this season.”
“Good night, then.” She slipped past him, heading for the guest room.
He inhaled her lingering scent, and cursed himself for wanting to follow her all the way to her bed.
HE’D JUST POURED his first cup of morning coffee, and the mug froze halfway to his mouth when Tasha walked into the kitchen. No woman had a right to look that good first thing in the morning—her hair sleep-mussed, her face free of makeup and her cheeks naturally flushed.
Darn it all, he’d like to see her sleepy-eyed, her hair mussed from a night of his lovemaking—an image that had kept him awake most of the night. Not gonna happen, he reminded himself.
“I heard you up.” Pulling her cotton robe modestly around her, she smiled a lazy greeting. “Should I wake the children?”
He tried to act natural, as if he were used to having a beautiful woman in his kitchen every morning. “No, let ’em sleep. If they want to come out to the ranch later, you can bring them.”
“Fine.” Barefoot, her toenails an intriguing raspberry red, she glided to the coffeepot and poured herself a mug.
“You know how to find the place now?”
“Ella showed me what to look for at the turnoff. Evidently that new invention called street signs hasn’t reached Reed County yet.”
“We’re a little backward,” he admitted, taking a gulp of coffee. It burned as it slid down his throat. “But then, only strangers would need signs, and we don’t get many tourists.”
“Really? The countryside is beautiful, in its fashion. Reed County must be a well-kept secret.” Glancing around the kitchen, she asked, “Do my housekeeping duties include making you breakfast?”
“I’ve already got the oatmeal on.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll do toast. Thanks, anyway.”
He nodded toward the toaster on the counter. “Help yourself.” Getting down a bowl from the cupboard, he stirred the oatmeal.
Someone knocked on the back door.
Cliff swiveled his head that direction, dismayed to find Winifred Bruhn staring at him through the door’s window. Not waiting for an invitation, she marched right into the kitchen.
“Now, isn’t this a cozy domestic scene!” Her gray hair was frazzled and windblown, her omnipresent notebook in her hand.
He leveled her his harshest look, which didn’t seem to faze her. “You’re supposed to wait until someone says come in after you knock.” Her sudden arrival had startled him so badly, he’d nearly dropped the damn pot of oatmeal on the floor.
