The Rancher Meets His Match

by Patricia McLinn

  He emphasized the last word as if it should explain his whole problem, but her face must have shown it didn’t. He started turning toward his father again, then stopped himself.

  “Theresa asked if I wanted to go this year—you know, sit with her family and all. I wasn’t thinking—she caught me off guard—and I said yes. And now I can’t say no.”

  “You weren’t thinking about what, Will?”

  “I don’t know anything about fancy dinners. I’d be sure to do something wrong in front of, uh, everybody. I hoped maybe you’d teach me about what I’m supposed to do, so I won’t mess things up in front of everybody.”

  Especially Theresa and her family. Sympathy welled in Hannah.

  “You won’t do anything wrong, Will. At least not anything major. The first thing to remember is the idea is to have a good time.”

  “So, you’ll help me?” His eyes, so like Dax’s, gleamed with hope.

  “Absolutely. I could set up a table like you’re going to see, so it would be familiar Saturday night, and go over what utensil you use for what.” Her planning aloud hit a snag. “If I had a formal place-setting here. Maybe the Westons—”

  “You mean fancy forks and knives and stuff? We’ve got that, don’t we, Dad?” Will eagerly turned to his father.

  Dax grunted an affirmative. “Family stuff.”

  “A whole cabinet of it,” Will added. “We had to take it all out to move it once—silverware and dishes and fancy glasses. I’d never seen it before that.”

  A cabinet of family tableware packed away as thoroughly as Dax had packed away his thoughts of his mother. A plan started taking shape in Hannah’s mind. A plan that involved more than teaching Will the niceties of place-settings.

  “How would you like to have a practice, Will?”

  “A practice? What do you mean?”

  “A sort of dress rehearsal. Instead of just showing you how the table would look, we could have a real dinner. Let’s see, if we polish the silverware and get the dishes ready, you’d get to know the pieces. Then I could cook, and we could have a real practice dinner—like it’ll be at the country club. So you’ll have already gone through the whole thing once before Saturday’s dinner.”

  “That’d be great.”

  “Hannah,” Dax said in that gruff voice that meant he was uncomfortable, “you don’t want to be doing all that work.”

  “It would be a pleasure.” Polishing wasn’t her favorite activity, but in this instance, it would be a pleasure—for Will’s sake and for Dax’s.

  “I thought you’d show him some things about forks and such and that would be it. Not polishing and making a meal and all.”

  He couldn’t possibly know what she had in mind for him, but something had him growling. Perhaps he picked up warning signals the way he read clouds.

  “This will show Will how it works a whole lot better, and I’d like to do it.” She paused, then looked from Will—who’d paid little attention to the adults’ interchange—to Dax. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t do it?”

  Will spun around to his father. “Dad.”

  He didn’t plead, he didn’t whine, but he made his desire clear. Hannah didn’t see how Dax could refuse.

  “We shouldn’t impose on Hannah.”

  “It’s no imposition. In fact, I’ll be imposing on you, taking over your kitchen on Friday and—”

  “Not Friday,” Will interrupted. “Friday’s the rodeo for the locals. Dad and I’ll be competing.”

  “How about Thursday—tomorrow? Is that okay?”

  “Yeah,” Will said with enthusiasm.

  “Dax? Will it bother you if I take over your kitchen?”

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s you working so—”

  “Good, then it’s settled.”

  Will waited until Dax gave a grudging nod, then faced her. She expected a smile; instead, she saw earnest concentration.

  “I was thinking, Hannah. Uh, about what you said about this being a rehearsal?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I wondered, maybe, you know, a rehearsal needs more people there.”

  Hannah went absolutely still. How could he possibly know her plan? If he gave it away now, it would never work.

  “So I wondered what you’d think about me maybe inviting Theresa,” Will finished in a rush. He consulted his father over his shoulder. “If that’s okay?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Dax grumbled. “Hannah’s the one who’d be cooking for her.”

  “I think it’s an absolutely marvelous idea.” Relief had Hannah gushing, and she didn’t care. “That will be terrific. You and Theresa can have the date Thurs—”

  “Not a date.” Will sounded horrified, or maybe that was terrified. “It’s not a date. Not the country club dinner, either. It’s because of working with her on the Shell Canyon project. It’s not like we’re dating.”

  “Oh. I see. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But even so, the practice dinner Thursday will make you more comfortable with the situation and more comfortable with each other and that will make Saturday more fun—even though it’s not a date,” she added hurriedly.

  Now Will did smile—in fact, he beamed. She beamed back at him.

  “So it’s all set,” she added. “I can come over this afternoon and we’ll get the dishes and everything ready. Then I’ll shop tomorrow morning and cook in the afternoon.”

  She and Will discussed what time he should invite Theresa, then they all headed toward the door. Will left with repeated thanks and cheerful goodbyes. Dax stopped in the open doorway, next to where she stood. He stared straight ahead.

  “You shouldn’t be going to so much trouble.”

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “Anything you spend on this, you tell me. I’m paying. And—”

  Now he did look at her. Her pulse jumped and the spot between her shoulders tingled so much she longed to rub it against the edge of the door. How did the man do that?

  “You shouldn’t swing your door wide open like that before you know who’s there. Not even in Wyoming.”

  Then he marched out, boot heels clomping on the wooden porch.

  * * * *

  A fool could see she’d just woken up. The way she’d blinked slowly against the light. The flush across her cheeks, especially on one side where it had rested against something. The way her clothes were slightly rumpled.

  It made a man feel soft inside. Like he wanted to stand and watch her sleep so nobody rudely woke her up.

  Then she’d put both hands up to try to tame her tousled hair, and her blouse had tightened across her breasts, and a man felt anything but soft.

  “This could be okay, you know, Dad?”

  Dax dragged his thoughts from something far better than okay. “What?”

  “This whole dinner thing at the country club. I didn’t want to hurt Theresa’s feelings, since she was pretty nervous about asking me and all, but geez . . . But I think it’s going to be okay now.”

  His son’s recognition of Theresa’s feelings made Dax proud—and a little awed. Wasn’t easy for any male to figure a female’s feelings, but at fifteen it had been damned impossible for him. “You’ll have a good time.”

  “Hannah is nice, Dad.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “You know, I, uh, what I said about you seeing her, back at the start, and then when I said you could keep on seeing her to sort of help me out, I know that’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?”

  “Both.”

  “Will, I’m not following you. What’re you saying?”

  His son sighed the sigh of a teenager dealing with a dense adult. “It’s okay with me—you seeing Hannah. I was a jerk before. A baby. That’s what I’m saying. And I know you’re not seeing her just because of me. That there’s, you know, something going on with the two of you. Maybe something serious.”

  Dax opened his mouth to repeat the reassurance he’d given Will last week—he wasn’t getting s
erious about anybody—but before he could, his son rushed on, “I’m not saying that’s bad. It’s kind of weird, but I guess it’s natural that you might still be interested in women. You’re not all that old.”

  Tom between laughing and groaning at Will’s views on his age and the fact that lately he’d been feeling about fifteen himself, at least in one department, he kept to the main trail.

  “There’s nothing serious between Hannah and me.”

  “But I see the way you look at her. And you’re happy when you’re going to see her.”

  “I enjoy her company.” He swallowed and strained to keep his voice even. “She’s a fine woman. But she’s leaving in a few days, going back to North Carolina.”

  “Oh.” Will’s voice was very small.

  He couldn’t tell his son that her leaving had been his reason for choosing Hannah to ask out in the first place— that got entirely too complicated. And he sure couldn’t mention the strange fragments of thoughts surfacing in his mind the past few days on the subject, because that was even more complicated.

  “So you see,” he said flatly, “serious can’t come into it.”

  Dax hadn’t cleared his mind of that conversation when he walked into his house that evening. Even if he hadn’t seen her car in the drive, he’d known Hannah would be there.

  She’d called not long after he and Will got home, and said she’d talked over the dinner plans with Irene, and they wanted to come by right away to see what he had in the way of supplies and equipment.

  Fine with him.

  He’d stayed away from the house all afternoon. He could have stayed away this evening, too. He should have.

  She had Will there to help her and keep her company. He could have driven into town and caught supper at the cafe if he’d a mind to. Or, if his conscience balked at that indulgence, he could have worked as long as the light held. Or longer, since his never-ending list of chores included upkeep on shoeing equipment stored in the lighted shed.

  So, why he didn’t head that way when he got out of the truck, he couldn’t say. But he found himself stepping inside his own kitchen, and stopping dead still.

  It felt warm.

  Surely warmer than when he’d checked the clean tile floor and unencumbered countertops before leaving this afternoon to be sure they were passably clean. But that was pure nonsense, because he’d wager a year’s feed money that Will was too oblivious and Hannah too polite to think of turning up the thermostat.

  Maybe it was the clutter.

  A stack of cloth-draped items hip-high leaned against the blank wall opposite the U-shaped work area of the kitchen. A trio of baking sheets, a pair of rectangular glass pans and a freestanding mixer sat on the counter. Breadcrumbs and shreds of lettuce scattered across the counter by the refrigerator most likely indicated Will had made himself a sandwich. A hot pad and a small square pan with something crusted inside sat atop the stove.

  Maybe it was the sensation.

  His hand connected with something soft yet faintly scratchy. He looked down to find his hand stroking what hung over the inside doorknob. Hannah’s sweater. He snatched his hand away, but it didn’t seem to matter to the nerve endings in his hand.

  Maybe it was the smell.

  He drew it in hesitantly. Something sharp, like . . . like cheese after it melted and just before it burned. He breathed in more deeply. The rich, round scent of cooked apples with a punch of spice. Cinnamon. And something else. Something familiar. Something he connected with Hannah. Something that had his lower gut tightening. Something . . . he still couldn’t name.

  Maybe it was the sound.

  Muffled voices. Not the tinny sound of radio or TV, but the mellow strains of real, live voices. Dax leaned against the door and tried to remember the last time he’d walked into this house and heard voices before he called out a hello to Will.

  He couldn’t.

  Surely, sometime, June had been here with Will, talking to the boy when Dax came home. Sometime there’d been this same murmur of life within this house when he walked in.

  Not when I was growing up.

  No. But since he’d brought Will back, surely it had been different. Surely. He searched his memory. Its answers were quiet and cold.

  But that didn’t mean a woman was the answer. Elaine had lived here eight months. Yet there were no memories of her bringing this kind of life into the house. Screaming, crying, self-pity, accusations. Those were the sounds he remembered from that time.

  But that didn’t mean Hannah was the answer, either. Even if she somehow filled a house with warmth in an afternoon. A single afternoon. A few hours

  A few hours. A few days. Two weeks.

  Two weeks nearly gone.

  She’d leave come Monday and she’d take the warmth with her. Unless he could get her to stay.

  No. He’d have to find another way. He’d have to figure out this warmth stuff himself or keep on living without it. Because he didn’t need a woman in his life. Never had. Never would.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hannah looked up from polishing a soup ladle to find Dax in the dining room doorway staring at her. The man made her heart beat faster just by being. The moment stretched and stretched, as she wondered a little desperately what was going on behind those brown eyes that studied her so intently. When he finally opened his mouth, she held her breath.

  “What’s that smell?”

  Air came out of her in a rush that blended a snort and a chuckle. The perfect antidote to her waywardly romantic imagination.

  “Silver polish. After seeing the state of your silver, I’m not surprised you’re not familiar with the smell.”

  “It’s not my silver.”

  “Your family’s.”

  He shifted his right shoulder, as if shaking off any association with his family, and leaned the left one against the doorjamb.

  “Will’s been telling me how your great-great-grandmother received this silver as a wedding present from her parents and she brought it all the way out here when she and your great-great-grandfather homesteaded here.”

  “And then after the big die-out the winter of ’86-’87 she took it back to St. Louis and sold it to get the money to keep the ranch going,” Will took up. “And the first thing Casper Randall did when he had the money was go and buy it back for her.”

  “Can’t say I’ve heard that story,” Dax replied.

  And he didn’t sound interested. So she had no reason to tell him, Hannah reasoned, about the linen tablecloth and napkins she and Irene had found, lovingly folded away between layers of tissue paper and ready to use tomorrow after receiving TLC from Irene.

  “Grandma told me.”

  “If Casper Randall was half the cattleman your grandfather said he was, the first thing he would have done when he got some money was build up his stock by buying new bloodlines.”

  “Maybe he did both,” Hannah offered to smooth over the moment. Dax wouldn’t even accept a family story by proxy from his mother. Was she crazy to think she could help this situation? “We’re about done here. Next we’ll wash the dishes so they’re ready for tomorrow. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Did you have supper?”

  “Yeah,” Will answered Dax for both of them. “I made us sandwiches. Then Hannah showed me how to make ’em special. Open-faced sandwiches, with special cheese topping on ’em—Chalmers’s Cheese Delight—it’s great. And then she baked apples for dessert. With cinnamon and what was the other thing, Hannah?”

  “Vanilla.”

  “Vanilla. That was the smell.”

  Hannah wondered what could make Dax sound—and look—so grim over a little vanilla.

  “Yeah. We saved some for you. A sandwich, too. All you gotta do is heat it up in the microwave. The cheese is separate and you wait till it’s melted, then you pour—”

  “I’ll get some later. Will, you got homework?”

  “Yeah, but I said I’d help Hannah.”

  “Go do your homework
. I’ll help her.”

  When Will had left the room, Hannah put down the soup ladle with a thud beside a stack of dessert plates from the china she and Will had taken out of the dusty cabinet. “I don’t know if I want to be in the same kitchen with you, especially not when you’ll be handling knives. You’ve been like a bear with a thorn in its paw since you walked in.”

  “Maybe it’s the sight of all that strange paraphernalia in my kitchen and all this folderol spread over my dining room.”

  “I told you I was borrowing a few things from Irene in case you didn’t have the equipment I’d need for cooking,” she said a little defensively, then shifted to the attack. “And, if you’ll recall, you asked me to do this. For Will.”

  He winced slightly. Good—if he felt contrite, she would press her advantage.

  “As for this folderol,” she went on, “it’s part of your son’s heritage. A piece of his family that he’ll inherit eventually.”

  “If it doesn’t get broken first,” Dax said with a pseudomaniacal gleam in his eye. At least she hoped it was pseudo when he straightened from the doorjamb and took up the stack of dinner plates. “I’ll wash.”

  “I think it would be a better idea if I wash.”

  “It’s my house, my china—my family’s china—I’ll do the washing. You dry.”

  The twitch at the comer of his mouth gave him away just before he turned and headed for the kitchen. His mood had definitely turned, and it made no sense to be grumpy at him for being grumpy when he no longer was. She took up the dessert plates and followed. “Yes, sir!”

  Working in companionable silence, they settled into a rhythm of his washing and her drying that dispatched the bulk of the china quickly.

  But she still wondered what had caused his unusual patch of surliness. ‘‘Does it really bother you, Dax? All this, I mean.”

  “Not so much bothers me, but . . .”

  “But you don’t like that there’s something you can’t give Will, even this little bit of knowledge.”

  He shifted his weight and plunged both hands into the soapy water in the sink. “You’re a damned insightful woman, Hannah Chalmers. You’re right.”