The memory of that first night as the Rocking M’s cook still had the power to raise color in Carla’s cheeks a month later. The ranch hands had ribbed her mercilessly but not unkindly; Luke had muttered something about cooking for men instead of schoolboys; and Ten had gotten his head handed to him for pointing out that the food was four times as good as anything they had eaten in years, so why complain over short rations?
In fact, Ten had gotten his head handed to him on a regular basis since Carla had come to the ranch. From the look on Luke’s face at the moment, Ten was about to get another full serving of his boss’s temper. Hurriedly Carla tried to take the scrub brush from Ten’s hand.
"Thanks for the help, but Luke is right. He didn’t hire you to clean walls."
"You’ve been working longer hours than any hand since you got here," Ten said calmly, hanging on to the brush. "This is my day off, and if I want to scrub kitchen walls, I’ll damned well scrub kitchen walls."
Luke looked at Carla’s drawn, unhappy face and felt his temper rise even higher. Ten was right; Carla had been working twelve-hour days since she had come to the ranch. Every floor in the ranch house was clean enough to eat from. The kitchen counters and cupboards gleamed with cleanliness, as did the beaten-up wooden tables in the dining room. Thanks to Carla’s detailed shopping lists, the pantry and cupboards were packed with various foods, the refrigerator was bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables, and a menu was posted in the dining room so that the men would know just what the coming week held in the way of meals.
Even as Luke stood glaring at Ten and Carla, the kitchen was fragrant with the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the range’s huge oven. Apple, cherry and blueberry pies had become staple items at the dinner table. Homemade baking powder biscuits and bread helped to fill in the cracks. Waffles and pancakes were common breakfast fare. Fresh brownies appeared in lunch bags with gratifying regularity.
And Carla looked as though she hadn’t eaten a bit of any of the bounty. Luke suspected she had lost weight since she had come to the ranch. He was certain that she smiled less frequently than ever in his memory. He was also certain that he was the cause of her unhappiness. Each time he told himself that he wouldn’t lose his temper with her again, he would see her looking up at Ten with wide eyes and laughter trembling on her lips; and then Luke would feel anger racing through his blood, driving out the desire that was so much a part of him these days that he barely noticed it.
Luke tried to tell himself he was grateful that Carla no longer followed him around like a lost puppy, but he didn’t believe it. Slowly, painfully, he had come to the realization that he had wanted Carla at the ranch for the summer because of her transparent feelings for him, not despite them.
For the past four weeks he had thought often of other summers when he had been the sun in her sky…and she had been the sun in his. At some deep, hidden level of his mind, he had wanted to know again that feeling of being special to someone. It was a heady sensation, one he had never before known, for his father had been too busy working the ranch to pay much attention to his son; and his mother had had nothing left over from fighting her own interior devils.
Damn it all to hell, Luke fumed silently. Why did Carla have to grow up and spoil everything?
There was no answer for Luke’s angry question, unless the insistent beat of his own blood was a kind of answer. Maybe Carla hadn’t spoiled anything after all. Maybe she had grown up enough not to run away in fear if he held her against his rigid, hungry body and tasted the honey of her mouth once more.
Not a chance. She’s just a schoolgirl.
She’s twenty-one. A lot of women have kids by the time they’re that age – and they didn’t get them by running away from a man’s kiss, either.
Luke knew his reasoning was true as far as it went. But there was another truth, one that came a lot closer to home, a truth that lay beneath Luke’s hair-trigger temper.
There are two men I call friends. She’s the kid sister of one of those men.
Yeah. And she’s going to break her heart on the other one if I don’t stop it.
That’s Ten’s problem. And Cash’s.
But it wasn’t, and Luke knew it He wanted Carla. He wanted to take the clothes from her body and look at her, touch her, taste her, sheathe himself in her until there was nothing but her passionate heat bathing him and ecstasy bursting through both of them. He wanted that until he woke up sweating, shaking, wild.
She is Cash’s sister, for God’s sake! Have you forgotten that?
No. That’s why I waited until she turned twenty-one, old enough to do whatever she damn well pleases.
Silent questions, answers, questions, retorts, questions; and finally the question that had no answer but silence and rage.
Are you going to ask her to marry you?
It was an impossible situation. Luke had vowed long ago that he would never ask a woman to be his wife unless she were ranch-born and ranch-raised, able to accept the hard work and isolation that was a part and parcel of the Rocking M’s rugged life.
But Luke had found no ranch girl who could reach down past his harsh exterior and touch his soul. He had found no ranch girl who could make his body leap into readiness with a look, a smile, the clean scent of her skin. That was what Carla did. She made the raw lighting of desire run like liquid fire in his veins.
Gradually Luke realized that Carla was watching him with shadowed, unhappy eyes; and Ten was watching everything with an infuriating smile on his handsome face.
"Counting to a hundred, boss man?" Ten asked in mock sympathy. "You know, you never did have the temper of a saint or a martyr, but lately you could have taught Satan himself a trick or two."
Ten’s drawl was as mocking as his smile. Luke felt his hold on his temper slipping. The only thing that made him hang on to his self-control was the certainty that Ten wanted him to lose it.
"Keep pushing, Tennessee. You’ll get there."
"I’ll take that as a promise."
"Carla, why don’t you go check on those kittens in the barn," Luke said, never looking away from Ten’s calm, handsome face. "Make sure none of them get lost."
"The cookies will – "
"I’ll take care of them," Luke interrupted, his voice soft. Too soft.
Carla looked from one man to the other with wide, worried eyes. She started to speak, only to have her mouth go dry when Luke looked at her. Without another word she turned away. The taut silence was broken by the light sound of Carla’s retreating footsteps. The back screen door squeaked open and banged shut.
Luke waited for a long count of fifteen before he spoke.
"All right, Ten. Let’s have it."
"You do know how to tempt a man," muttered Ten, watching Luke with narrow gray eyes.
"So do you. Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?"
Ten didn’t bother to deny it. "Just thought I’d give you something as mean as yourself to take out your temper on."
"Meaning?"
"You’ve been riding Carla hard since she got here. No matter what she does, you tear a strip off her."
"Maybe. And maybe I think my cook has better things to do than chase my ramrod."
"Yeah, I kind of thought that might be the burr under your saddle." Ten’s mocking smile faded.
"You don’t have a kind word to say to Carla, yet when someone else does, you jump real salty. You never used to be a dog in the manger, but the way you’re acting lately, a man might think if you can’t have Carla you don’t want anyone to have her."
"She’s too young to talk about having."
"Bull, boss man. She’s a woman all the way to the soles of her feet." Ten saw the shift in Luke’s expression, the flash of hunger and anger. The ramrod nodded, satisfied with what he saw. "She’s fully of age. If she wants a man, she’s entitled."
"Leave her alone, Ten."
"Why? You’ve made it real clear you don’t want her. Hell, it’s not like she was a kid anymore. The men in Boulder aren’t blind. By now, one of them has probably taught her why women are soft and men are hard."
"Drop it."
Ten sighed, lifted his hat and raked his fingers through his black hair. "You’re being a damned fool," he said calmly. "The way I see it, Carla has loved you for years and you’ve pushed her away for years. Finally you made it stick. She went off to college and found men who didn’t push her away. She grew up. Then she came back to see how you stacked up against her memories and her new experiences with men."
"Carla isn’t the type to sleep around," Luke said tightly.
"Who said anything about sleeping around?"
Ten retorted. "I was talking about a young girl who was sent out of here with her pride in shreds. Seems to me she could be forgiven for finding a nice boy or two who wanted to kiss all the wounds and make her feel like a woman instead of a ‘schoolgirl.’"
Luke said not one word, but the thought of Carla being touched by another man shook him. The thought of her being taken by anyone sent a killing rage through Luke’s veins. He had been so sure, so unspeakably certain, that she would never allow anyone to touch her but him.
Ten measured the barely contained rage in Luke’s expression and shrugged. "Suit yourself, boss man. But you should know one thing. Carla told me she came here this summer to get over you. You keep riding roughshod over her feelings and she’ll walk out of here at the end of the summer and never look back. Then where will you be? You may not be her first man, but so what? You’re the one who was given first call and you turned her down flat. Your fault, not hers. You’ll never find another woman with half what she has to offer and you know it."
There was a long, taut silence while Luke measured Ten with the cold yellow eyes of a cornered mountain lion.
"I wasn’t cut out to live in a city," Luke said finally.
"Did she ask you to?"
"No, but sooner or later she would. The Rocking M is hell on women. I’d rather not marry at all than have a woman walk out on her kids and her husband, or hit the bottle or go crazy staying on the ranch and make everyone’s life a living hell."
"Carla wouldn’t – "
"Like flaming hell she wouldn’t," Luke said savagely. "Do you think my mother or my aunts wanted to betray their children and husbands? Do you think my father or my uncles deliberately picked weak women to marry? Do you think I want to watch Carla get thin and sullen grieving for a way of life she can’t have if she’s my wife? Or maybe you think I should be like some college kid and just take what she’s offering and not worry about marriage, is that it?"
Ten swore beneath his breath, the words all the more violent for the softness of his voice.
"Now you’re beginning to understand," Luke said. "Stay away from her, Ten. This is the only warning you’ll get."
"What if I’m thinking of marriage?"
Luke closed his eyes for an instant. When they opened there was no emotion showing; not anger, not fear, not desire, nothing but an icy emptiness.
"Are you thinking of marriage?" he asked softly.
"She’s the kind of woman that makes a man think of hearth fires and long winter nights and babies teething on your knuckles," Ten said. Then he sighed, raked his fingers through his hair again and added, "But that’s all it will ever be for this cowboy. Thinking. Dreaming. I’m piss-poor husband material and no one knows it better than I do." He jerked his hat into place and met Luke’s eyes. "Ease off on the spurs, Luke. Carla has a real tender hide where you’re concerned."
"And if I don’t?" Luke asked, more curious than angry.
"I’ll get to feeling protective and you’ll jump salty one too many times and we’ll have hell’s own fight. Then you’ll be short one ramrod and the ranch will be short one boss." Ten smiled wolfishly. "You’re bigger than I am, but you’d start out fighting fair. I wouldn’t. Be quite a brawl while it lasted."
Unwillingly Luke smiled in return, then laughed. After a moment his face settled into grim lines once more.
"Hell of a mess, isn’t it?" Luke said quietly.
"It’ll do," agreed Ten. "Why in God’s name did you let Carla come to the ranch this summer if you knew it was going to drive you crazy?"
"I…" Luke closed his eyes and shook his head. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. She didn’t have a summer job. The Rocking M didn’t have a cook. The men were going to rebel if they had to keep eating slop that hogs wouldn’t touch. Carla is a fine cook. Some of the best meals I ever had were ones she fixed for Cash and me over in the old house." Luke rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. "Like I said. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, I expected her to cry uncle by now."
"Carla?"
"It’s been four weeks. She must be dying to see a movie or get her hair fixed or whatever it is that women do in town. I promised her before she ever came back here that all she had to do was say the word and the bet was off, no hard feelings and no regrets."
"You don’t know her very well, do you?"
It was an observation, not a question, but Luke answered anyway.
"What do you mean?"
"Carla never backed up an inch for anyone, including that hardheaded brother of hers. She made a deal with you. She’ll keep it or die trying." Realization hit Ten. "That’s why you’re riding her so hard – you think you can goad her into quitting."
Luke looked uncomfortable but said nothing.
"Not one chance in hell, buddy," Ten said succinctly. "Carla may be pretty to look at and have a smile as soft as a rose petal, but that’s one determined girl. Think about that the next time you start in on her. You’re beating a hog-tied pony. She can’t escape."
Luke’s breath came in harshly. He hadn’t thought about Carla in that way, as a person of pride and determination. He had seen her either as a girl too young for him or as one more woman who would be ground up by the Rocking M’s isolation and demands. His breath hissed out in an explosive curse.
Ten smiled sympathetically. "You’ve got your tail in a real tight crack. It’s pretty hard on a man when he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t."
"Do us both a favor, Ten," Luke said, giving the other man a hard look.
"Sure."
"Stop trying to run interference for Carla. Every time you start hovering over her like a mother hen, I get to thinking about how good stewed chicken would taste."
There was an instant’s silence before Ten threw back his head and laughed. He was still laughing when Luke set out for the barn with angry, long-legged strides.