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Fifteen minutes later Ricky tore out the back door, his backpack slung over one shoulder, making his usual mad dash for the school bus stop down the road. She glanced at the clock and sipped her second cup of coffee. Seven-thirty. Normally she’d start cleaning the dog pens about now. Today...well, she didn’t think she could shovel poop one-armed, but maybe she should try. Fortunately, the kennel only held five dogs right now. January was slow.
Well, she thought, pushing away from the table, sitting here brooding didn’t accomplish much. She’d do what she could and let the rest go, then come back to the house and find some way to squeeze enough from her budget to hire someone.
Summer grabbed the keys to the kennel from their hook by the door, stepped out onto the wooden porch at the back of her house, and got assaulted. Kelpie knew better than to jump up, so she ran in tight little circles and yipped. The black-and-white Border collie mix was supposed to be Ricky’s dog, but she adored everyone impartially. Two years ago Summer had found Kelpie huddled outside her fence, obviously abandoned. The dog had needed food, love and 132 dollars’ worth of trips to the vet to regain her health, and she’d been rejoicing ever since. Summer smiled and managed to stroke Kelpie’s head a few times before the animal raced off in delight.
At the end of the porch, Hannah, the aging bloodhound who had belonged to Summer’s father, limited her greeting to a dignified thump-thump of her tail.
A breath of wind stirred the sign at the main gate, the one that read “Three Oaks Kennel and Stable” with the little drawing of the oak tree on it. Summer inhaled deeply, enjoying the slight bite in the air, even enjoying the smell of the nearby stable—a smell that meant horses and home.
Some people liked to wander, she knew. Not her, not anymore. Running off with Jimmie had taught her that much. Summer needed roots. She needed to be on her own land, in her own house, with the people who were important to her nearby.
She was a lucky woman, Summer thought as she started across the big, grassy yard, heading for the kennel. She was living the life she wanted, she had a bright, wonderful son she loved more than her next heartbeat, and she’d learned a valuable lesson while still young.
Men were too damned much trouble. Period.
She had just reached the paddock that lay between the house and the kennel when a huge old Buick pulled up next to the chain-link fence that surrounded the front part of her property. Summer slowed and shook her head. She knew that car.
The woman who got out was as tiny as her car was big. She was a dried-up little dab of a woman in a faded cotton dress, with a face like crumpled tissue and thin white hair scraped back in a bun. “Summer!” the little old lady bellowed. “What do you think you’re doing? Didn’t I tell you I’d come over and take care of those dogs this morning?”
All bones and mouth, that was Maud Hoppy. Summer stopped. “Yes, you did. And I told you not to.”
Maud slammed the door of her tank shut and walked over to the small gate, the people-sized one just west of the big, truck-sized gate. “Don’t know what difference you thought that would make.”
Exasperated, Summer propped her good hand on her hip. “You’re nearly eighty, Maud. You don’t need to be shoveling dog poop.”
“I’m seventy-one.” Maud always lied very positively. She closed the gate behind her. “And I’m not going to shovel poop. I’ll just feed the silly things. Do you need me to feed the horses, too?”
“Ricky and I already fed the dogs. As for the horses, I got hold of Raul last night. He’s already been and gone.” Raul usually worked in the afternoons during the week, but he’d agreed to come early that morning to take care of the stable chores before school. He wouldn’t do the kennel, though. The strapping sixteen-year-old hunk of Latin machismo was afraid of dogs. Not that he’d ever admit it, of course.
“Good, then you and I can go back inside and drink coffee while you figure out how much you can afford to pay a hand for the next two months.” Maud took Summer’s good elbow and pulled. Her snowy white head barely reached Summer’s shoulder.
“Two months is impossible,” Summer said, towed reluctantly back towards the house by her tiny friend.
“The doctor said two months.”
“Dr. O’Connor doesn’t have to pay my bills,” she retorted. “I have to pay his.”
Still, somehow Summer found herself seated at her kitchen table with her checkbook, a pad and paper, and a computer printout of her current bills and projected expenses in front of her. Her shoulder throbbed in rhythm with her pulse as she added up a column of figures while Maud darted around the kitchen like a hummingbird, looking for things to clean.
Summer hoped Maud found something to clean soon. If she didn’t, she was apt to start cooking, and Summer really couldn’t afford to throw out whatever mess resulted. “Sit down and drink some coffee.”
“In a minute.” Maud pounced on the toaster, unplugging it and taking it over to the sink to shake the crumbs out. “Have you figured out how much you can afford to pay?”
“Yeah.” Nothing. That’s what she could afford. But by making a partial payment on her property taxes and putting the rest off another month or two—they weren’t going to seize her land, she assured herself, even if she was late—she could pay everything else that was due and hire someone for a while. “It’s not going to be easy finding someone, though. Getting someone who knows horses and doesn’t mind that the job is temporary—”
“Now there,” Maud announced in her raspy, Mae West voice, “I can help.” She turned around, toaster in hand, polishing it as she spoke. “You know Will Stafford?”
“You know I do, Maud. His wife Rosie and I are on the SPCA board together in Bica. But their son Joe already has a part-time job, doesn’t he?”
“I’m not talking about Joey. Last night Will was calling around, trying to find someone who needs a hand. Seems Will is helping out an old buddy from his rodeo days—”
“A rodeo bum.” Summer’s lip curled.
“Now, don’t you be judging everyone by that husband of yours. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, whether this fellow is like your Jimmie was or not. He’s desperate. Seems his truck died and he’s about broke. You could board him in that little room off the kennel and pay him real cheap.”
Maud sounded so satisfied with the poor man’s plight that Summer couldn’t help grinning. “Still, if the man is anything like Jimmie, I’d have a battle getting my money’s worth, no matter how little I paid him.”
“Jimmie was lazy. This fellow, though—I don’t imagine a fellow gets to be ‘Best All-Around Cowboy’ at the NFR without working for it. Besides, Will Stafford vouches for him.”
Summer frowned. “So who is this paragon?”
“Chase McGuire.”
“Chase McGuire?” she asked disbelievingly.
Maud put the toaster back where it belonged. “I’ll just make us some more coffee,” she announced. “You know this McGuire?”
Summer stood up. “Not really. I’ll make the coffee, Maud. I’m not helpless.” At least the coffee would be drinkable if Summer made it. She managed to beat Maud to the coffeepot, grabbed the glass carafe and took it to the sink.
She and Jimmie hadn’t exactly run in the same crowd as Chase McGuire. Jimmie had never made it near the top, while the other man had stayed high in the rankings for years. Why would such a man be interested in a two-bit job?
While the carafe filled with water, Summer used her good hand to shift her left arm in the sling, trying to ease the ache. “I’ve never actually met him, Maud. But no one who’s been involved with rodeo could help knowing who he is. I saw him around sometimes, back when I made the circuit with Jimmie.” Oh, yes, she’d seen him. She remembered his lean build, his shaggy blond hair and that deadly smile. And the women. She remembered that, too. He’d attracted women the way horses draw flies. “A man like that would never be satisfied with this sort of penny-ante job,” she said, and shut off the water. “No, he wouldn’t work out.”
“He’ll be here in thirty minutes.”
Summer gaped at her friend. “He...he—”
“Will’s at work, so I told Rosie to bring him by to talk to you about the job at nine-thirty. That seemed like plenty of time.”
How was it she’d never noticed that sly gleam in her friend’s faded blue eyes before? “I do not want Chase McGuire coming here. I won’t hire him, so it’s just a waste of my time and his. You’ll have to call Rosie back, Maud. I’m not changing my mind on this.”
“We’ve just got time to dust the living room before they get here,” Maud said.
Two
Thirty-two minutes later, Chase McGuire stood at her door, hat in hand, with Rosie Stafford. Rosie wore an orange blouse that went with her fiery hair about the same way that Tabasco sauce goes with jalapeños. Chase McGuire wore jeans, a sky blue shirt and that dangerous smile of his. He was a tall man, with just enough creases in his face to make it interesting. He had dark eyelashes, and his hair was six shades of blond all stirred up together.
Summer looked at the man standing at her front door and realized she’d been fooling herself when she thought she knew anything about him. Seeing Chase McGuire at a distance, hearing the gossip about him, was totally different from meeting him up close and personal. He radiated bad-boy charm the way a stove gives off heat.
Summer managed not to stutter when she told the two of them to come on in. “Have a seat, Rosie,” she said, gesturing at the old plaid sofa that Maud had vacuumed free of cat hair less than ten minutes before. “And...Mr. McGuire, too, of course.”
“Make that Chase,” he said, treating her to a smile that showed off the single dimple in his left cheek. “Otherwise I might forget to answer. ‘Mr. McGuire’ is my big brother, Mike.”
“Of course.” No, she’d never known this man. He made her feel...stupid, she thought. Stupid was definitely the word for what she was feeling. “Sit down, Chase. Can I get you something? Some coffee?”
Summer noticed two things when Chase followed Rosie to the couch. First, he limped. Not badly, but the stiffness in his stride was especially noticeable in a man so surely made for strength and grace. She also noticed his... physique. At the mature age of twenty-seven, Summer was used to considering herself past the age for youthful follies. She was dismayed to learn she hadn’t gotten over her weakness for a cowboy in a tight-fitting pair of jeans, after all.
“The coffee’s fresh,” Maud informed them. She was perched primly on a ladder-back chair, imitating a proper old lady.
“None for me, thanks,” Rosie said, settling herself into the cushions on the couch with a little grunt. “Seems like the bigger the rest of me gets, the tinier my bladder shrinks. Can’t drink more’n a couple of cups these days.”
Summer caught the quick glance Chase McGuire gave her sling before he answered easily, “I don’t need a thing.” He sat on the couch. The Stetson he turned to lay, brim up, on the end table was black with a rolled brim and a gorgeous band of silver conchas.
Not a hat to wear when mucking out a stall. “I’m not sure what to say,” Summer began, seating herself in the old recliner. Leaning against the recliner’s high back eased some of the ache in her collarbone and shoulder. “Maud talked to Will without discussing this with me first. I don’t know if you realize what the job would be.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “But I know it involves horses, so I don’t figure there’s too much of a problem.” That grin flashed again. “I’m good with horses.”
Yes, the NFR’s “Best All-Around Cowboy” a few years back ought to be good with horses. She wondered how he’d managed to go through all his prize money—a small fortune, really—so quickly. Gambling? Women? Not that this man would ever have to pay for a woman, but a lot of cowboys liked to spend whatever money they had on whoever had their attention at the moment.
“I’m sure you can handle horses just fine,” she said, “but I need someone to do the dirty work, not the fun stuff. Muck out the stalls, feed the horses, worm them, move them to pasture and back—oh, and probably tack up for me on Mondays and Fridays. I give lessons.”
“Now, Summer,” Rosie said, “Chase ain’t a Hollywood cowboy. He don’t mind getting dirty or shoveling out a stall. He’d make you a good hand.”
Chase shot his friend an exasperated look. “I’d just as soon apply for the job myself, Rosie.”
Summer shifted, trying to find a position that made the hurt go away. “But there are the dogs, too. At the kennel. You’d have to clean up after them, feed them, hose down the runs—and a lot of the owners want their animals bathed before they pick them up. I can’t imagine that someone like you would—”
“Ma‘am,” he interrupted. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘someone like me,’ but what I am is broke. So’s my truck, unfortunately. Your job’s got two things going for it. One, Rosie tells me you’ve got a room I might be able to stay in. Two, it’s temporary. That suits me, because I don’t plan on being here longer than it takes to save up enough to get my truck fixed.”
No, Chase McGuire wasn’t the type to hang around. “I can’t afford to pay much.” She couldn’t help noticing his eyes. They weren’t a plain old brown. Like amber glass held up to the light so the sunshine streams through, they seemed lit from within. Like he had something burning inside him.
“How much is not much?”
Summer didn’t like the way he was looking at her, all warm and approving—as if he’d noticed her noticing his eyes. She said stiffly, “Two hundred a week, with the room Rosie mentioned and two meals a day thrown in. I’d need you on Saturday and Sunday, too, at least at first.”
“Well,” he said, his smile widening, “if that’s an offer, you’ve got me, honey, for as long as you need me.”
She frowned. “I didn’t—”
“Good!” Maud boomed as she bounced out of her chair. “Glad we got that settled. You made a smart decision, Summer.”
“I didn’t—”
“You might as well get your stuff from the truck, Chase,” Rosie said, heaving herself to her feet. “I imagine Summer wants to put you to work right away.”
“His room’s at the kennel,” Maud told Rosie. “I’d be glad to show it to him. It isn’t much, but the bed’s decent and the smell’s not bad. There’s even a half bath Summer’s daddy built on, when he had a hand working here full-time.”
“I’m sure Chase’ll like it just fine, after sleeping on that old couch of mine last night,” Rosie said. “Well, Chase, I wouldn’t say you’ve landed in clover exactly. Maybe a big pile of horse dung soft enough to cushion the fall.” She chuckled. “And Summer, honey, don’t you worry about Chase. He’s a rascal, but an honest one. You might have to knock him on the side of the head a time or two, but he’ll do you a good job. You’ll be glad you hired him.”
I didn’t, Summer thought, but Maud picked up where Rosie left off, telling Chase how much he was going to like working at the Three Oaks. Summer couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
She glanced at Chase and saw that he was thoroughly aware of her predicament. His eyes were brimful of mirth.
Her lips twitched in spite of herself. “All right,” she said. “All right! The two of you can quit trying to out-talk me and embarrass me into hiring Chase. I do need a hand, and he’s willing to work cheap. And,” she said, sliding him a look, “like you said, Rosie, I can always knock him on the side of the head if I need to.”
And really, she assured herself, in spite of her unsettling reaction to this man, she didn’t have anything to worry about. After Jimmie, she was immune to the superficial appeal of a good-looking traveling man.
“Then I’ll just do like I was told,” Chase said, standing and smiling that easy smile of his, “and get my bag from the truck. I figured that if you did hire me, you’d need me to get to work right away, so I brought my stuff along. I hope you don’t mind...ma’am.”
Somehow, when spoken in his low, molasses-sweet voice ma’am sounded more like honey or sweetheart. Something restless and unwelcome stirred in her, a sensation as hot and ominous as the rumbling approach of a summer storm. “Of course not,” she said, a bit too sharply. “Come on. I’ll show you your room and get you started at the kennel.” She stood up, turned to say something to Maud...and then stood there, blinking foolishly, disoriented by the fierce grinding pain that seized her.
She’d forgotten her collarbone. She’d moved without taking her disability into account, and jarred the break. How could she have forgotten like that?
A big, warm hand cupped her good elbow, steadying her. “You all right?” Chase’s deep voice asked softly.
She turned her head and looked right into amber eyes with the mirth for once completely gone. Concerned eyes, thickly fringed with those dark, ridiculous lashes. She was close enough to see the texture of the skin stretched across his smooth-shaven cheeks. Men’s skin, she thought fuzzily, is so different from women’s. Summer looked at Chase’s skin and thought of leather, the smooth, supple sort of leather so soft it made you want to pet it, made you want—
“I’m fine,” she lied, and pulled her arm away.
Oh, Lord. What had she done?
Fate was a fickle female. Chase had known that before he was old enough to shave. For the first time in fifteen months, though, fate seemed to be favoring him some. He had a job now, with the promise of a roof over his head that wasn’t part of an old friend’s charity.
Two months wasn’t so long, he told himself as he retrieved his bag from Rosie’s truck. He could handle being without wheels that long, and he could learn to be around horses without having it matter so damned much.
His new employer ought to be a nice distraction. Of course, she hadn’t really wanted to hire him. He had the distinct impression Summer Callaway didn’t trust him.
Smart woman.
He really ought to leave her alone, he told himself as he headed back to the neat little frame house where the three women were probably picking him apart in his absence. So maybe she did have a body that would make a strong man weak and the prettiest blue eyes he’d seen in a long time. Those blue eyes frosted over every time he smiled at her. He was a rodeo cowboy, after all. Just like Jimmie Callaway had been. Considering what Chase knew about the jerk she’d been married to, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep her distance.
He frowned at the platoon of tiny toy soldiers and army vehicles blocking the sidewalk up to the house. Summer Callaway was a mother, apparently. He hadn’t known that. Not that Chase had anything against mothers. He just didn’t get involved with them. Nine times out of ten they were looking for someone to be a daddy to their little ones, and Chase was the world’s worst candidate for that role.
“Hey, Rosie,” he said, swinging the door open and stepping back into the neat-as-a-pin living room. The house smelled inviting, a friendly mingling of scents: pine cleaner, coffee and vanilla. The room itself was definitely “country,” from the maple end tables to the comfortably worn plaid upholstery to the gun rack near the door. Folks who lived in the country tended to take a practical attitude toward guns. They were a necessary tool for dealing with wild dogs, snakes or rabid skunks.
“I hope you haven’t been telling all my secrets.” He looked from his friend to the slender woman in worn denim, green flannel and a pale blue sling. She stood there watching him with those pretty blue eyes of hers.
Heat. Like a punch in the stomach he felt it again—the same hot, bubbling mix he’d felt when he first laid eyes on her. Anticipation. Hunger. A thrill a lot like the moment when he lowered himself onto the back of an angry bronc in the chute and knew he was in for one hell of a ride.
He smiled.
Rosie chuckled. “I can’t tell what I don’t know, and I’m sure I don’t know all your secrets. Well,” she said, and heaved herself to her feet, “I’d better get back to the house. You let me know, Summer, if this rascal gives you any trouble.”
Somewhat more reluctantly Maud announced that she had to be going, too. While the three women went through their leave-taking rituals, Chase watched his new boss.
Some might find her a bit on the skinny side, at least from the waist down. Not Chase. The moment she’d opened the door to him, he’d discovered a decided partiality for long, slim legs and a tiny butt, especially when they were matched up with full breasts and hair the color of whiskey in a glass.
He was all but positive she wasn’t wearing a bra under that big flannel shirt.
“Well?” she said, facing him as she closed the front door on her friends. “Are you ready to go to work?”
His gaze drifted lazily from her breasts up to her face. He was supposed to leave this woman alone? He shook his head, doubting himself already, and drawled, “I’m ready whenever you are, sugar.”
Frost warnings went up in those blue eyes. “We’ll go out the back door. Come on.”
Her house was small, but immaculate. What little he’d seen so far of her operation made him think it would be just as scrupulously tended, too, and he liked that. Chase wasn’t especially tidy with his own things, but he was downright nitpicky when it came to horses, their gear, housing and care.
“There’s a phone in the barn and another cordless unit in the kennel, but don’t worry about answering if it rings,” she said, pausing next to the back door to pick up a cordless phone. “I keep one of the cordless phones with me all the time so I can book appointments.” She frowned at the phone in her hand. “Dammit, I can’t put this on my belt if I can’t fasten a belt.”
