The Rancher Gets Hitched & An Affair of Convenience

by Cathie Linz

  This recipe was from one of the cookbooks she’d brought from Chicago and it didn’t call for cooking the soup in the pressure cooker, but she decided it would save time to do so.

  Meanwhile, she had to get back to the wash, or more specifically, the dryer, which was buzzing at her as if mocking the fact that she hadn’t been able to figure out how to turn that feature off when a load was finished. “I heard you the first time,” she shouted as she headed for the vocal dryer.

  “Who are you talking to?” Lucky demanded.

  “The dryer.”

  “Do all city girls talk to dryers?”

  “I didn’t talk to dryers when I lived in the city.” She used to drop her dirty clothes off at a laundry in the lobby of her condo building. They’d magically come back all clean and pressed.

  “Then why do you talk to them here?”

  “Because they talk to me first. Buzzing at me. Oops.” She looked in dismay at the T-shirt she’d put in a half hour earlier, which was now twice as wide and half as long as it had been. She’d grown tired of reading all the labels on every item of clothing—all of them had said Tumble Dry, so after a while she’d stopped looking.

  Meanwhile the washing machine had suddenly taken to shaking as if it was drunk and about to heave. Something was definitely wrong with the spin cycle. This was only her second load of wash. She punched what looked as if it should be the off button. It didn’t work.

  “You open the lid and it turns off,” Lucky told her as if she were the adult and Tracy the child.

  “Right. I knew that.” Lifting the lid made the machine grind to a shuddering halt. Peering inside, Tracy frowned at something that looked remarkably like...a pair of suede boots? Her boots. “What are my boots doing in the wash?”

  “Getting clean,” the little girl replied.

  Tracy didn’t have time to discuss why suede and washing machines did not go well together, because she’d suddenly become aware of a hissing noise coming from the kitchen. The rattling heaves of the washing machine had drowned it out before. Now she heard it with dread. Her soup!

  Racing back into the kitchen, Tracy arrived just in time to see the vent on top of the pressure cooker bubbling ominously. Oh, no! She’d forgotten to put the weight thingamajig on top of the vent. Too late. A geyser of split peas spewed clear to the ceiling, where the steaming gooey green masses clung like something nasty and noxious.

  “Why are you cooking snot?” Lucky asked from behind her.

  “I’m not...it’s split pea soup.”

  Gazing up at the glop on the ceiling, Lucky said, “Is that how you’re supposed to split the peas?”

  “I doubt it,” Tracy muttered. “You stay back while I turn this thing off.” Once the burner had been turned off, the pressure cooker eventually stopped its spewing.

  So much for impressing Zane with her culinary skills. Not that he cared much for French cooking anyway. Especially when it was hanging from the ceiling.

  Tracy plastered a bright smile on her face. “So...how about spaghetti for dinner tonight?”

  In the end, she went with several family-size pizzas she found in the freezer instead of spaghetti. Add a large salad and presto—dinner, with not a minute to spare. Cleaning up the split pea mess had taken more time than she thought. Any hope of keeping the incident quiet went out the window when Lucky regaled everyone with the story.

  The silver lining was that, once again, Beauty the hog would benefit from Tracy’s mishap in the kitchen.

  And the lesson was to always read directions all the way through to the end—where it said never to cook applesauce or dried peas in the pressure cooker. Now she knew why.

  As Tracy loaded the dishwasher after dinner, the twins helped her by putting the silverware in the washing basket while keeping her up-to-date on her duties as housekeeper. It seemed, as far as they were concerned, pizza every night was de rigueur.

  “A housekeeper can cook pizza for dinner all the time,” Rusty said.

  “Yeah, but she can’t make us eat everything on our plates,” Lucky added.

  Rusty nodded his agreement. “Or get mad if we feed our pizza or cake to our snake. A housekeeper would never get mad about that.”

  “Son of a buck, you kids are full of hooey,” Buck scoffed as he entered the kitchen, adding a cackle of laughter for good measure. “I’ll tell you what a good housekeeper does. Follows orders. My orders. And is a good listener. Appreciates my poetry. Is a great cook. And it would be nice if she could play the fiddle or sing.” -

  “And she should be able to pitch a baseball,” Rusty added.

  “And know all the words to the songs on The Lion King video,” Lucky inserted.

  “And be able to bake an apple pie that’ll melt in your mouth,” Buck said wistfully.

  “What’s going on in here?” Zane asked as he joined them. “A family conference?”

  “We were just telling her how to be a good housekeeper,” Lucky said.

  “She has a name,” Zane pointed out. “It’s Tracy. Or Ms. Campbell.”

  “Tracy is fine,” she said. Especially the way Zane said it. There they were again. Those forbidden thoughts. What was wrong with her? Not a week ago, she’d been engaged to be married and now here she was getting all gooey about the way some sexy rancher said her name.

  It was one thing to notice that he’d look good in a jeans commercial, it was quite another to like the way he said her name or the way his fingers felt on her breast or the way his tongue tickled the roof of her mouth when he kissed her.

  “Can anyone tell me why there’s a pair of wet boots in the washing machine?” Buck inquired from the laundry room.

  “They were dirty,” Tracy replied, exchanging a grin with Lucky. The little girl grinned back as if they were co-conspirators.

  Buck chortled. “That explains it then.”

  For the first time since she’d arrived at the ranch lost and soaking wet, she felt like part of the family. And it was a good feeling.

  AS THE DAYS PROGRESSED, Tracy settled into a routine. And that old saying about practice making perfect did apply to cooking. Not that she was anywhere near perfect yet, but things were slowly improving.

  By her third week on the ranch she’d actually mastered the art of having everything prepared at the same time, ready for the table. No more waiting around for the potatoes to be done while the meat got cold. She’d even managed to set a lovely table, including a centerpiece of wildflowers she’d gathered from around the house—stiff-stemmed black-eyed Susans and magenta spikes of fireweed. She’d found an easy recipe for fast-baked fish and dilled rice, which she served with honey-glazed baby carrots.

  She’d no sooner placed the meal on the table and sat down when everyone started reaching and gobbling. Five minutes later the food was gone. She’d worked all afternoon on it, and they’d inhaled it as if it were fast food from a burger joint instead of the first perfect meal she’d ever made. There had been no savoring, no compliments.

  Sure Lucky hadn’t wiped her mouth on her sleeve and had used her napkin, and Murph’n’Earl had given her shy smiles, but that was it. She’d barely had time to eat a few bites, and they were ready for dessert.

  “You ate it all!” she yelled at them all.

  Buck blinked at her accusatory tone. “Something wrong with that?”

  She blinked back tears. “No one even paused to enjoy it.”

  “We ate it, didn’t we?” Buck looked and sounded aggrieved, as only a male of the species could. “That means we enjoyed it. You fixed us supper. It’s supposed to be eaten.”

  “Eaten, not devoured,” she retorted, deciding that men really were from Mars. “It was a masterpiece.”

  Buck frowned in confusion. “It was just fish and carrots.”

  “Yes, but made just right. My first perfect dinner!” she practically wailed. Sleep deprivation was starting to take its toll on her. She didn’t finish her work until late at night, and then she had to get up before the birds the n
ext morning.

  A more experienced housekeeper could probably get things done in half the time, but not her. She’d had to resort to using twenty-five-watt bulbs in the living room because she had yet to dust in there, and the dimmer light hid that fact. A little tip she’d picked up from a housekeeping site on the Internet.

  “I liked the fish,” Rusty said, reaching over to squeeze her hand as if sensing she wanted to cry. “It didn’t taste like a city girl made it. It was real good, and I had seconds. It was so good I wouldn’t even give some to Precious or Joe because I wanted it all for me.”

  “You’re right, it was wonderful,” Zane confirmed in that shimmy-provoking voice of his. “Tracy, I apologize for our lack of manners. We’ve been without a woman’s civilizing influence for so long that we’ve resorted to acting like a bunch of rowdy cowboys gathered ’round the chuck wagon.”

  “No offense intended, ma’am,” Murph said.

  “Best meal I’ve had in weeks,” Earl added.

  Since Tracy had been cooking their meals for weeks, she decided this was a backhanded compliment but an accurate one. Her dinner tonight had far exceeded everything else she’d done up to that point. That’s why she’d been so upset that they hadn’t noticed, although she supposed the fact that they’d eaten every scrap was their way of saying it was good. But there were times when she needed to hear the words, darn it.

  To make up for it, Zane insisted on serving dessert—scoops of Rocky Road ice cream. He even stuck around afterward to help her tidy up in the kitchen, a first.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he paused to carefully replace the dish towel through the handle of the refrigerator the way she liked before continuing, “that you’re welcome to ride any of the horses anytime you’d like.”

  “I don’t exactly have a lot of free time.”

  A guilty expression flashed over his face. “I haven’t given you a day off since you’ve been here, have I? Sorry about that. Time tends to get away from me. From now on you can have Sundays off. How does that sound?”

  “Nice.”

  “And as I said, you’re welcome to take one of the horses.”

  “I don’t know how to ride,” she interrupted him, still feeling out of sorts.

  “I’ll teach you. Think of it as my way of repaying you for the wonderful meal.”

  Tracy tried not to notice how good his denim-clad behind looked as he bent over to put a bowl in the dishwasher, before just giving up and letting herself surreptitiously enjoy the view. “You already pay me to make wonderful meals.”

  “Yeah, but this was your first perfect one. It deserves something special to mark the occasion.” He straightened and smiled at her. “Besides, riding is one of those skills a good housekeeper should have, like knowing all the words to the songs on The Lion King video.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, wondering if she was being set up here. “You’re telling me that your previous housekeepers could ride horses?”

  Zane nodded. “All twelve of them could ride. Even old Mrs. Battle, who was eighty if she was a day.”

  “Well, if Mrs. Battle can do it, then so can L”

  That philosophy sounded fine until Tracy found herself face to face with a giant of a horse a few days later. “Is this the one that gets fresh? Because I’m telling you that one of these horses copped a feel the last time I was out here.”

  “That would have been Randy,” Zane said.

  “An apt name.”

  Zane laughed. She liked his laugh.

  “People treat horses the way they treat people,” he was saying.

  If that was true then Zane must be really great with people, because he was certainly magical with the horses, even with the feisty Bashful, who was anything but. Randy was the horse who’d laughed at her, but Bashful was the one who looked at her as if he wanted to bite a chunk out of her.

  “Just a guess here, but riding means I have to get close to the horse, right?” Her nervousness was cloaked in humor, but he heard it.

  “Are you afraid of horses?”

  “Let’s just say I have a healthy respect for something that is so much heavier and bigger than I am.”

  “I’m bigger and heavier than you are,” Zane pointed out, “yet I don’t see you showing me a lot of healthy respect.”

  The man was actually teasing her! Standing there, in his denim shirt with the snap closures and long sleeves rolled up to show his tanned forearms. She’d already memorized the fit of his jeans, the image indelibly imprinted on her brain. His cowboy boots were scuffed and worn, a working rancher’s boots, not an urban cowboy’s. His hat was white, like one of the good guys.

  She wiped the damp palms of her hands on her jeans, suddenly at a loss for words.

  Zane just smiled and said, “We’ll start out easy with Mabel. She’s very reliable.”

  Mabel might be reliable but she was still the size of a house. Or that’s how she appeared from Tracy’s five-foot-five perspective. But Mabel did seem to have friendly eyes, complete with a set of gorgeous eyelashes.

  “First off, I’ll show you how to walk around a horse. Here, give me your hand.” He took it, then frowned at the scrape at the back of her knuckles. “How did you do that?”

  She mumbled her reply.

  He leaned closer. “What did you say?”

  “I said I scraped it on the brownies I made this morning.” The look she gave him dared him to say anything. “I lost track of time and they overcooked. They were harder than rocks by the time they cooled down, and I had to scrape the pan to hack them out of there.”

  While she talked, he absently brushed his thumb over her knuckles as if to soothe the hurt. Once he realized what he was doing he quickly placed her hand near the back of the horse’s rib cage.

  “Okay, you stand here, with your rib cage against the horse’s. No, get closer.” As he positioned her, his fingers brushed her breast. “Sorry about that,” he muttered. “Okay, now move around to the other side. This way.” He walked around the back of the horse to the other side.

  “You sure this isn’t some kind of plot for revenge for that quiche I made the other night?” she asked suspiciously. “I mean, this isn’t a setup where the horse is going to smack me in the face with her tail or something, is it?”

  “Oh ye of little faith.”

  “I’m not the one who doesn’t trust city girls.” The words were out before she could stop them.

  “No, you’re the one who doesn’t trust me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Then prove it,” he said. “Walk around the horse. I’ll be right here. She won’t hurt you.”

  And what about you? she wondered. Will you hurt me?

  Only if you let him, her inner voice replied.

  7

  THREE HOURS LATER Tracy felt like a pro, standing next to Mabel and cleaning her hooves while chatting with the horse as if she were an old friend. “You’re much nicer than Bashful or Randy. Do they give you any trouble?”

  “They’re geldings,” Zane answered on Mabel’s behalf.

  She’d read enough Western romances to know what that meant. “Ah, so they’ve been fixed. You’d think that would have taught them a lesson, hmm, Mabel? But males do tend to be stubborn in their bad behavior, isn’t that right?”

  “Since you and Mabel here are getting along so well, how about taking a ride? I’ll saddle her up for you, and we’ll go out for a while.”

  “If it’s okay with Mabel, it’s okay with me,” Tracy said. “Is what I’m wearing all right for riding?”

  “Do your boots have a heel on them?”

  “Not a platform heel, no. I bought these in Bliss.” She held out her foot and wiggled it at him. “My beige suede ones had to be thrown out.”

  “Good thing.” The tone of his voice let her know that he was no fan of her suede fashion boots. “Flat soles are no good for keeping your feet in the stirrup. Those Bliss boots will do fine, they’ve got a practical heel on them. As for
the rest of your gear, jeans and a shirt are fine. We don’t go in for fancy English riding here.”

  “Good,” she said, apparently the only one who knew her jeans and shirt bore the label of a trendy western outfitter. “I’d look stupid in jodhpurs and one of those funny little cap things they wear on their heads.”

  “Headgear is required around here, too.” Zane plunked, there was no other word for it, a straw cowboy hat on her head. Then he stood back to survey her, as if she were livestock he was considering buying. “That’ll do.”

  It certainly would do. He could just stop staring at her like that. You didn’t see her looking at him, even though she might want to. No, she’d shown admirable restraint. Just a peek or two without him noticing, like now as he put the saddle on MabeL Her heart only skipped a beat or two as she appreciated, for about the ten millionth time, how good he looked in jeans.

  She likened her behavior to appreciating the view of the mountains out the back of the ranch house. The mountains were there, so she paused from time to time to admire them. No harm in that.

  Not that Zane’s gaze on her had been filled with masculine admiration. Come to think of it, he’d looked at Mabel with equal consideration.

  “Okay, we’re ready to go. I’ll give you a hand up,” Zane told her.

  “That’s okay, I can do it myself.” She didn’t want him accusing her of trying to entrap him or some such nonsense. He could just keep his seductive hands to himself.

  She’d seen enough westerns on TV to know that you grabbed the...thingamajig at the front of the saddle... the horn. Yeah, that’s right. You grabbed the saddle horn with your hand and stuck your foot in the stirrup and then, presto, you were on the horse.

  She was halfway up before realizing something was wrong. It wasn’t until she was fully in the saddle, after an awkward scramble that left her feet dangling out of the stirrups, that she knew exactly what is was that was wrong. She was facing Mabel’s rear end instead of her beautiful mane.