“Yes,” he said, carefully moving a small sack of beans to the right. “It can be.”
That night, Boone taught her how to light the stove and Amelia let him, thinking all the time that this was one particular skill that she would never need to master. Still, she watched him, and when he told her how to regulate the temperature, she paid attention. They fried up some steak and boiled potatoes and carrots, even though Amelia had always disliked cooked carrots.
She had much more fun cooking than she’d thought she would, and told Boone that.
“It’s only fun because you’ve never done it before,” Boone said.
Amelia was beginning to relax around Boone. He was far different from any man she’d ever known. He didn’t flirt with her as Carson had, or tease her like her brother did. He was difficult to read, and she found herself studying him in an effort to know what was going on behind that serious expression of his. His eyes, it seemed, were the key. Because he rarely smiled, she found herself staring at his eyes to see whether he was annoyed or amused.
“It’s true, I’ve never cooked before in my life,” Amelia stated.
“You don’t say.”
She made a face, which he ignored.
They ate on the little table across from each other, lit by the sun, which was still high in the sky and making it unbearably hot in the small kitchen.
“I think tomorrow night I shall eat sitting in the fountain,” Amelia announced. She was literally soaked with sweat and decidedly uncomfortable, while he sat across from her as if he were sitting on a block of ice. He just stabbed a piece of meat and shook his head as if baffled how anyone could be uncomfortable sitting in the oven that was his kitchen.
“I meant to tell you earlier that Dulce has abandoned me. She wouldn’t listen to reason even when I explained to her that it’s even more improper for me to be in this house with you alone. Especially at night. She seemed to think that with Carson gone, I didn’t have any need for a chaperone.”
Boone had been looking at her but he dropped his gaze to his plate.
“Would it be terribly inconvenient for you to go to the hotel at night? At least until we can find someone else or convince Dulce to return?”
For some reason, Boone’s face tensed, the muscles along his jawline bunching as he sawed at another piece of meat.
“It’s not that important,” Amelia said, not knowing why Boone was angry. “It’s not as if you’re going to ravish me on the spot.”
He dropped his fork and knife suddenly. “And why wouldn’t I?” he said, sounding almost angry.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said cautiously, still not understanding his anger.
“Do you think I don’t want to? That having you in my house isn’t a temptation?”
Amelia felt her cheeks go scarlet. “Is it?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
This was the strangest conversation she’d ever had. “You certainly don’t act as if I’m a temptation. Not that I want you to, but…” She bit her lip. “I’m not quite certain what you want me to say.”
Boone stood up abruptly. “A man would have to be dead not to see how pretty you are.”
“Thank you,” she said rather uncertainly, because he still seemed angry.
“You’re beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and you’re sitting across from me. And your lips. Aw hell,” he said, swiping a hand through his hair. He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Now you know why I’m not married.”
“I suppose that wasn’t the most eloquent speech,” Amelia said. “You’re no Lord Byron.”
He stood staring at the stove, turned partly away from her. “I’m a gentleman. At least I try to be. You don’t have to worry about me making any kind of advances toward you.”
“I’m not worried. At least I wasn’t until you told me I was a temptation.” She gave him a shaky smile, but he was still turned away.
“You aren’t. I’m not.” He let out a strangled sound. “All right. You are.”
“Perhaps I should go to the hotel?” she asked softly.
“That hotel isn’t fit for a lady. I’ll go.”
“I hate to force you from your own home,” Amelia said, feeling awful. “I know it was my suggestion, but now I feel just horrid.” She was only doing what she thought she ought, but somehow it had come out all wrong, as if she were afraid of him. To be honest, he didn’t really frighten her in the least. It was rather flattering that he thought her a temptation. “It’s the appearance of it.”
“I understand.”
Amelia stood and gathered the plates, bringing them to the sink. “Since you cooked dinner, I’ll wash the dishes. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Amelia set about filling the sink with water, then poured in a kettle of boiling water from the stove to warm it a bit. “Back home we have hot and cold running water. I used to take the most wonderful baths.” She felt herself blush, because the image of her naked in a bathtub was not at all the thing she should be discussing with a man.
“I have a big ol’ copper tub if you want a bath.”
The thought of sinking into a tub of cool water sounded wonderful. “I’d love a bath,” Amelia said. “Could you?”
“I’ll set it up in the kitchen and then I’ll go on to the hotel. That way you’ll have your privacy.” He cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable talking about such a thing. He got out a large pot and filled it with water, then put it on the stove to heat.
“I won’t need much hot water. The air in here will heat the water fast enough,” she said, laughing.
While she did the dishes, he dragged the tub into the kitchen and started filling it with water. For a moment, Amelia was struck by the comfortable intimacy of the two of them working together in the small sunlit kitchen. She wondered if Boone had ever fixed a bath for a woman. If she believed him about never having a sweetheart, then he likely hadn’t.
“This is very nice of you,” she said, as he poured the fourth bucket of water into the tub. She ran from the room to retrieve the scented soaps she’d brought from home. She loved her lavender-scented soap, and had feared Texas wouldn’t have it.
“Smell,” she said, holding it up to Boone’s nose. He took an obligatory sniff.
“Nice.”
“I do love good soaps,” Amelia said, breathing in deeply. “I didn’t see any in your store.”
“I don’t think most ranch hands would appreciate smelling that pretty,” he said.
Amelia giggled. “You never know. You could start something new.”
She placed the soap and a towel on one of the kitchen chairs where it would be easy to reach, and watched as he poured the steaming pot of water from the stove into the tub.
“I’ll head over to the hotel now.”
“Good night, Dr. Kitteridge.”
Three Legs lay in one corner, and when she looked at him he thumped his tail, no doubt hoping she’d toss another piece of steak his way.
“I’ve nothing more for you.” Thump thump thump. At least she had the dog to keep her company. “I don’t like being alone.” The dog rested his head on his paws and looked up at her as if understanding every word she said. “I suppose I’ve nothing to worry about. It isn’t as if this is a busy town with strangers walking about looking for naked women to accost while they’re taking a bath.”
She eyed the tub warily, suddenly torn between the wonderfully soothing water and her unexplainable fear of being naked and alone. She’d finally made up her mind that she was being silly, when she realized she had a problem. Her dress hooked up the back.
“Oh, bother.”
She looked at the bath with longing and began tackling the twenty-five hooks that held her dress together.
Boone walked across to his store early the next morning, secretly hoping Amelia would still be abed. He’d felt like a fool the night before, and if he’d been a drinking man it would have been a good night to get stinking drunk. As it
was, he had to suffer with cursed clarity at just how stupid he’d acted. He could feel his face heat just thinking about what he’d told her, how he’d acted.
He wished for the first time in his life that he’d spent more time in the company of women. He couldn’t recall ever having a conversation with one other than Julia. He didn’t know what to say, how to act. Obviously.
Carson came out of the womb flirting. It was as natural to him as breathing. But Boone was a different story entirely. In college, every student, every professor, was a man. He’d kept to himself, making few friends, studying instead of going out into town. He’d wanted to make Roy proud, and so he’d put every ounce of energy he had into getting good grades and becoming the best doctor he could. He’d graduated a year earlier than the other students, anxious to get home and help Roy out with the store.
He wasn’t certain just how it had happened, but somehow he’d gotten to be a grown man without even so much as holding a woman’s hand.
He’d lain in that hotel room torturing himself with thoughts of Amelia in that bathtub, the golden late-day sun bathing her in soft light as she moved the soap that smelled like heaven slowly over her breasts. Always when he’d thought about a woman, she’d been some faceless body with all the right parts. But Amelia was painfully real, agonizingly beautiful, and today she would smell like lavender.
Boone entered the building through the store, making his way back to his apartment. He smiled when he entered the empty kitchen; the bath was still there and filled with water. It was tangible proof that for a little while, someone else was in his home.
Then he stopped still, his heart hammering in his chest. Her dress lay on the floor in a heap and it was obvious it had been viciously ripped.
“Oh, Jesus, no,” he whispered, holding the dress in his hands, staring at the torn cloth. A knife lay on the kitchen table and he nearly collapsed from fear.
“Miss Amelia!” he shouted, moving out of the kitchen and throwing open the doors as he went. “Amelia!”
He reached her room, opening the door with force, only to find her sitting up sleepily, her blond hair tousled, her cheeks flushed from sleep. And her neck red and raw, as if someone had tried to strangle her. He took a step toward her, his concern overcoming any relief that he’d found her alive, and she instinctively pulled up the blanket to cover herself, even though the gown she wore was hardly provocative.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your dress. It was ripped. I thought…”
“Oh. My dress. I forgot. I couldn’t get it off and the bath looked so lovely…I ripped it.” She giggled. “I never thought I’d sacrifice a gown for a bath.”
“You ripped it?” He let out a breath of pent-up air. “The next time you rip a dress from yourself, I would ask that you please discard it so that I don’t think you’ve been murdered in my house.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you weren’t accosted, what happened to your neck, then?”
She put a hand to her neck and winced. “Again. My dress. It’s wool. Light wool, but not the thing to wear here. I think the heat and the wool combined to make my neck quite red. It was my last clean dress, you see. Dulce helped me get into yesterday but there was no one to help me out of it last night. And I certainly couldn’t ask you.” She grinned. “Not with you already so tempted.”
“I’m not that tempted,” he said, irritated that she would bring up his foolish words.
“Oh.” She put on a pouty face as if disappointed that he could resist ravishing her, which forced a smile from him, the little imp.
“Get dressed and I’ll see to your neck,” he said. “You do have something to wear, don’t you?”
“I’ll find the least offensive item.” She smiled again, her teeth straight and white. It really wasn’t fair that everything about her was so completely appealing. He found himself wishing, just for an instant, that he was a different sort of man. The sort who would flirt and court a woman. And he wished she wasn’t planning to go home quite so soon.
Amelia entered his office wearing a high-neck cotton blouse that had been nearly ruined on the crossing. It was stained and so Amelia had deemed it unwearable, but now she was glad she’d saved it.
“Please take a seat.”
Amelia smiled slightly, hearing his “doctor” tone, which was so different from the one he’d just been using when he thought she’d been accosted.
“Unbutton your blouse.” His back was turned to her as he gathered some sort of ointment and gauzy material.
She undid four more buttons and opened the neckline a bit to expose her neck, lifting her chin when he turned around, so that he could have a good look at her rash.
He put a gentle hand beneath her chin, moving her head this way and that to get a better look at the raw area, his gray eyes intent on her wound. “I would suggest no more woolen dresses,” he said, frowning. “You’re actually bleeding in one spot.”
“I thought it hurt a bit more than it should.”
He rested one hand on her shoulder and began applying a soothing balm on her neck so gently she hardly felt it. His fingertips moved in a slow, circular motion on her skin, and it felt so lovely, she closed her eyes. His fingers moved from just above her collarbone to below her chin, almost as if it were a caress.
“You need to pull your blouse down a bit so I can get to the back of your neck.”
She opened her eyes and undid the buttons, feeling strange, as if she were undressing for a much different purpose. He’d done nothing, said nothing to make her feel like anything but a patient being helped by a doctor, but for some reason, she felt oddly liquid, and frighteningly aroused. She shrugged the blouse down, revealing nothing more enticing than her beribboned chemise and the top of her loosely laced corset.
What is wrong with me, she thought. A man looks at me, touches me, and I’m ready to…to…
“Move your head forward a bit. It’s quite raw back here.”
She dipped down her head and he moved aside the strands of hair that had escaped her loose bun to apply the salve. She could feel her breathing growing more languid, and yet she was aware of every time his fingertips touched her skin. It felt exquisite. She let out a small sound and he froze.
“Did I hurt you?”
She could only shake her head, her cheeks blazing red with embarrassment. He is a doctor, she told herself, applying medicine.
“Almost done?” she choked out.
“I am hurting you. I didn’t think this would sting, only soothe the burn.”
“It doesn’t sting.” She swallowed, mortified that she could actually feel herself growing more aroused with every touch.
He came around to the front of her. “Miss Amelia,” he said, clearly not believing that he wasn’t hurting her.
She looked up at him, her mouth open slightly, her breathing shallow. “It doesn’t sting.”
He looked momentarily confused, then his eyes flickered, and his gaze dipped to her mouth as if drawn against his will.
“I should put on gauze, to stop the chafing.” He said it, but he didn’t move to the gauze, didn’t move at all. It seemed as if they stared at each other for several minutes, though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Amelia felt herself moving forward, and realized she wanted to kiss him, wanted him to kiss her.
She jerked back, horrified by what she’d been thinking, feeling. Boone was Carson’s brother. She couldn’t be thinking such thoughts about him. She hardly knew him, hardly even liked him.
“The gauze?”
He blinked twice, then retrieved the gauze, wrapping it around her neck quickly and efficiently, stepping back as soon as he was done. “I would suggest you wear your collars unbuttoned for a few days to allow your neck to heal. I’ll be out in the store.”
He turned, leaving her alone to wonder what was wrong with her. She’d met hundreds of men in her life, had danced with them, allowed them to hold her hand. One even tried to kiss her, but she hadn’t
allowed him to, mostly, she had to admit, because the thought of kissing that particular gentleman gave her the giggles.
It was only when she met Carson that she realized what desire was, how it could consume a woman, make her want to do all sorts of wonderful forbidden things. Carson had made her feel like a desirable woman, and she’d thought that meant they were perfect for one another.
Disconcerting as it was to admit, she had the same humiliating reaction to Boone. It wasn’t as if she were a woman of loose morals. She had let Carson take certain liberties that no proper girl should have, but she’d been in love and convinced that she and Carson would marry.
She had absolutely no illusions about Boone. And yet his touch sent her body shivering with pleasure. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. It made her feel out of control, as if she had absolutely no say in who she was attracted to.
She only prayed Boone didn’t know what was happening to her body when he was treating her rash. How mortifying if he suspected.
From Boone’s office she could hear the inviting sound of the garden’s fountain gurgling gently. She went out, wetting her hands and pressing them against her flushed cheeks. There had to be something wrong with her. She still felt aroused, her senses heightened, and she knew if Boone were to come out to the garden, she would allow him to kiss her. And more. She would allow it because she wanted it. And she shouldn’t. A proper young lady shouldn’t be thinking about kissing a man she hardly knew.
“Miss Amelia.”
Oh, Lord. She turned and smiled politely. “Yes?”
He stood uncertainly in the doorway. “Did you sell a vase? One with flowers? It’s missing, and there is no notation in the ledger.”
Amelia almost sagged with relief. For one terrifying moment she’d thought that perhaps he’d known what she’d been thinking. “I bought it. For Julia. I thought she’d appreciate something so pretty. I’m sorry, I did forget to put it in the ledger.”
He grinned at her, an unexpected reaction to be sure. She wished he wouldn’t smile, for it only made him all that more handsome. “You gave that vase to Julia?”
Jane Goodger Page 10
