He heard her laugh to herself and murmur, “And they say women are stubborn.”
Kent began to calculate just what two weeks boiled down to in actual minutes. There were a hell of a lot of them.
He could maintain silence like no one Brianne had ever met. She’d served him a plateful of pancakes, with bacon and toast on the side. He’d almost consumed it all and still hadn’t said a word.
She stood it for as long as she could, then asked, “Well?”
Kent shrugged carelessly, popping the last bit of toast into his mouth. He waited until he swallowed before answering. “Not bad.”
Actually, it was the best breakfast he’d had in a very long time, but he saw no reason to tell her that. He’d be damned if he’d let her think she was getting on his good side. Because she wasn’t. Not with a meal or a cup of coffee, even a damn fine cup of coffee. He couldn’t be swayed that easily.
All things considered, Brianne supposed she was lucky to have gotten that much out of him. “I guess, coming from you, that’s high praise.” She leaned her chin against her upturned hand and studied him. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
He slanted a glance in her direction before lowering his eyes to his almost empty plate. “Not unless there’s something to say.”
And that was where they differed the most. She loved communicating, exchanging ideas, views. Or just sharing a joke. To be closemouthed like this was completely alien to her.
“But there’s always something to say, something to comment on,” she insisted.
How could he look around him and remain silent? How could he look at a sunset, or a sunrise or a horizon and not be moved to say something to acknowledge it and the way it affected him? She’d kissed him. He wasn’t made out of stone. Why did he try to act like it?
She would say that, Kent thought. The woman had probably popped out of her mother’s womb talking. “I like silence,” he said firmly.
The last thing Brianne wanted to do was to argue with him, especially so early in their relationship. “In its place,” she allowed slowly.
“Its place is out here.”
Which was why he didn’t want her around. She’d ruin it. He liked the solitude that he felt out here. A solitude linked with an unspoken camaraderie with his men as they worked the ranch. With that constantly moving mouth of hers, and that invasive camera, she’d jeopardize all that, never mind that it was for a limited time. Time was irreplaceable; he didn’t want to lose a single day of it.
Brianne took out a pad and pen and began writing. Kent stopped, his fork suspended in midair as he scowled. “What are you doing?”
She glanced up for a moment, then continued making notes before she forgot something. “Writing down what you just said, about this being the place for silence.”
It wasn’t that remarkable. Why did she feel compelled to make something of it? He put his hand in the way, blocking the page.
“Why?”
The man was more suspicious than a debriefed spy, Brianne thought. “Because it belongs in the article,” she explained patiently. Moving his hand aside, she wrote as she spoke, her mind shifting between two different planes. “Because I’m trying to help readers picture the type of man who gravitates to this kind of life.” Finished, she flipped the pad closed. “Because I can give them a sense of being out here.”
“While sitting in their comfortable chairs, right?” He had nothing but contempt for men who spent the better part of their lives with their butts planted on a soft cushion, being swallowed up by their couches.
Brianne smiled knowingly at him. She was beginning to get his number. “Would you rather that they all came out here to experience it firsthand?”
The very thought of people crowding in on this beautiful land he held so dear could make him break out in a cold sweat.
“Your way’s better,” he admitted grudgingly.
She didn’t bother hiding the triumphant expression that came over her face. “I kind of thought you’d come around.”
The moment he laid his fork down, she whisked his plate away to the sink and began washing it.
He didn’t like being waited on. It was bad enough he’d let her make breakfast Let wasn’t exactly the word. He’d had no choice. The meal had been on the table when he’d returned from the bedroom.
He waved her away from the sink. “No need to do that. Just leave it.”
Brianne had no intentions of leaving anything in the sink. The pot and pans she’d used were all washed and dripping dry on the rack and she’d painstakingly cleaned out the coffeepot. She wasn’t about to leave a plate dirty.
“I’ve got nothing else to do.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “You’re still drinking coffee and I can’t take any photographs, remember?”
The fact that she intended to honor their agreement surprised Kent. He’d really thought that he was going to have to get tough with her for that to be enforced. “You’re sticking to the deal?”
She looked at him in surprise, as if she couldn’t fathom why he’d doubt her. “Of course. My word’s my bond,” she told him cheerfully.
Like he believed that, Kent thought.
Brianne looked around. Not finding the towel she was looking for, she dried her hands by wiping them along the seat of her jeans.
Kent felt a sudden, compelling urge to trace the path she’d just forged with his own hands.
With a self-deprecating huff, he blocked the thought. She grinned at him as if she could read his mind.
Probably could, being part witch. Why else had he found himself agreeing to this fool notion that had been forced on him when he could just as easily have said no? More easily, actually.
Probably more than part witch, he amended silently.
Turning the chair around to face her, Brianne straddled it as she sat down opposite him at the table. “So, when do we get started?”
He might as well get this over with. If his plan worked, with luck this would be the last morning he’d have to put up with her.
Kent drained his mug, then rose, leaving it where it was. “Now.”
“Great.”
With a deft move, Brianne had the mug in the sink, rinsed and draining before Kent reached the threshold. In the next beat, she was right beside him, hat and camera in hand, walking out the door.
He’d already told her once not to bother. It seemed to him she took pleasure in ignoring whatever she didn’t feel like hearing. “Do you always move this fast?”
Brianne’s shoulder brushed against his arm as she moved ahead. Turning, she smiled up at Kent, amusement in her eyes.
“Almost.” She paused, then added more softly, “Some things, though, I do slowly.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he would do well not to hear her answer. It might turn out to be more than he could deal with.
Instead, he slammed the door behind him and headed toward the stable.
His stride was long. Brianne had to hurry to keep up. She knew better than to ask him to slow down.
“I picked out a horse for you,” he told her as he walked into the stable.
She wondered if she should be wary or not. “Do you still do your ranching on horseback?”
The last ranch she’d spent time on, the owner conducted all his business from the driver’s side of a Jeep, but she had to admit that she couldn’t quite picture Kent behind the wheel of an all-terrain vehicle. Never mind that it marred the romance of the setting, Kent was the kind of man who belonged on a horse, not behind an engine.
“Most of it.” He resisted most forms of technology. That was for the others, not him. He was a man with few wants, few needs. Simplicity had always been the key to his character. A horse was a great deal simpler than a car. More economical, too. “Some of the others prefer riding around in a Jeep or in a truck. Using a horse gives me a better feel for what I’m doing.”
He stopped abruptly when he realized that he’d said more than h
e meant to. Damn, but she had a way of drawing words out. He was going to have to watch that.
Kent headed for the far stall, berating himself for running off at the mouth. When he turned around, he saw that she was writing in her notepad again. He might have known.
“If you stop to scribble down everything I say, you’re going to be left behind,” he warned. “I’m not waiting for you.”.
Brianne already knew that. Making a last hasty note to herself, she capped the pen and tucked the small, lined pad into her purse as she hurried to join him.
“You made that perfectly clear yesterday.” Without any awareness of just how sexy she looked doing it, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I just wanted to get things down while they were fresh.”
Drawing his eyes away from her, Kent merely grunted in response. He picked up a bridle before approaching the horse.
“Do you know how to saddle a horse, or was there someone to do that for you?” Kent slipped the bridle on the mare. Securing it, he spread a blanket over her back.
“There was someone to do it for me.” He didn’t have to turn around for her to know he was sneering. “But I still did it myself.”
Without waiting for him to deliver a snide comment, Brianne moved past Kent and into the stall. All her fears about him giving her an ornery horse vanished. The dapple-gray had the gentlest eyes she’d ever seen.
“Oh, aren’t you a beauty?” Taken, she slowly stroked the silky muzzle. Brianne glanced at the hindquarters to ascertain the horse’s gender before asking, “What’s her name?”
“Skye.” His eyes narrowed as Brianne fished two white lumps out of her pocket and held them in the palm of her hand. “You brought sugar?”
Skye gobbled up the evidence before he finished his question. Brianne laughed and patted the horse. “I always believe in bringing a bribe along.” She glanced at him. “Helps smooth the road.”
He didn’t care for the implications of that, but somehow, Kent couldn’t quite get himself to frown at her. Had to be something in the breakfast she’d fixed him. “Like coffee?”
She could almost make the innocent look on her face work, Kent thought. He tried not to be affected as he watched her lay her cheek against Skye’s muzzle. If he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that Brianne was a country girl, born and raised.
“I plead the fifth.”
Kent snorted. Turning his back on her, he went to get the saddles. “You can plead all you want and bribe all you want, I don’t intend to make it easy on you.”
Brianne liked honesty. Honesty was easier to deal with than lies that came in fancy packages. Honesty meant that there were no uncomfortable surprises to deal with later.
“I never asked you to,” she reminded him. She followed behind him, meaning to fetch her own saddle. She wasn’t going to give him any excuse to say that she wasn’t pulling her own weight. “If I can feel the aches, I can write about them.”
He deliberately avoided looking in her direction. Instead, he carried her saddle over to Skye and set it on top of the blanket. “Fair enough.”
In the midst of all the commotion, later that afternoon, with the fire crackling near him and the calf lowing before him, Kent stopped and looked over his shoulder at Brianne. She was dirty, undoubtedly sweaty, and there was a streak of soot along her cheek that somehow managed to make her look better, not worse. For all that, she still looked sexy as hell.
Though it didn’t come easy, he had to give her credit. She’d endured it all without a single word of complaint.
He figured she would cut out long before now, but she’d stuck, like one of those round little labels they insisted on sticking on apples these days. Stuck fast and hard.
Turning back around again, Kent waited until the branding iron turned red-hot. On the ground in front of him was one of the new calves he and his men—and Brianne—had rounded up. The sound it was uttering was pitiful.
He’d expected Brianne to say something about how barbaric branding was, or at least turn several shades of green the first time she saw the iron meet flesh and heard the brief, distinctive sizzle. She did neither. Instead, she had withstood it all, snapping away with that infernal camera of hers and keeping up, even when the pace had gotten hectic. Rounding up the last bunch had been particularly difficult.
“Achy enough?” he asked.
Brianne glanced up from her viewfinder. Was he talking to her or one of his men? “What?”
“You said if you felt the aches, you could write about them,” he reminded her. “I asked you if you were achy enough.”
Brianne laughed under her breath, surprised that he’d remember that. Surprised that he actually remembered anything she’d said. She raised her camera again.
“I’m getting there.”
Denying that she was beginning to ache would have been a lie and they both knew it. There were parts of her anatomy that were going to hate her for this come tomorrow morning. Parts that even now were starting to throb. She couldn’t remember riding this hard on any of the other ranches she’d visited. While her other subjects had gone out of their way to make ranching seem easier, more modern, Kent had gone out of his way to do just the opposite.
Ranching was hard work, she’d never doubted it. With him as her guide, she saw that it could be positively grueling.
She knew he was trying to make her give up, cry uncle and put away her camera as she retreated. Maybe it was a guy thing, she didn’t know, but whatever was motivating him, she wasn’t about to let it get the better of her. She enjoyed the challenge of keeping up. More than that, she was going to enjoy proving him wrong. She wasn’t one of those soft people he sneered at. And anyway, this was actually rather enjoyable for her. After spending so much time in the city, she welcomed the spaciousness she found out here.
Kent couldn’t help being aware of her. He looked at her for a second. The hat she’d worn was on her back now, and her hair, gleaming like spun gold in the sun, kept falling into her eyes. Why did pushing it back for her seem so inviting? She was making his mind wander, he realized, annoyed with himself.
“Hold her down!” Kent ordered gruffly.
Brianne had the uncomfortable feeling he meant her, until the hired hands around him crowded in to still the calf. Through the eye of the camera, she watched as Kent pressed the hot metal to the animal’s flank. The smell was horrid. Though she didn’t wince, Brianne doubted she’d ever forget it.
It might even keep her from ordering a steak next time around.
Brianne lowered her camera and turned away, slowly dragging air into her lungs. Not that she’d ever tell Kent, she thought. He’d take the fact that she was affected as a sign of weakness.
She didn’t have to be told that he had no patience with any displays of weakness. Strength was the only thing he respected. As long as she had to rely on Kent’s good graces, she intended to garner his respect.
Feeling better, she raised the camera again. Adjusting the lens, she shot several more photographs, capturing the scene in three different formats. She used close-ups to take in the details, regular shots to take in a standard view of the scene and panoramic shots to help fuel the romance that still clung to the land and the legend.
Lowering her camera, she smiled in satisfaction. Her body might feel as if it had been ground up and spit out, but her work was going well.
Finished, Kent sprang to his feet and out of the way. The calf, still lowing pitifully, bucked beneath the hands that were holding her down.
“Let her go, boys.”
With the restraints gone, the calf immediately staggered to its feet. The next moment, it ran for its mother, making the most of its freedom.
Kent let the branding iron fall on the ground. “Well, that’s the last of them for today.” He walked over to Brianne. He kept a close eye on her camera. So far, he’d caught her aiming that thing at him eight times. That was eight more than he was happy about. Not sure what prompted him to do it, he reached over and ra
n his thumb over her cheek, wiping away the soot mark. On a stack of Bibles, he wouldn’t have been able to explain why he felt something tighten inside of him. He shoved his hands into his back pockets.
“Want me to take you back?”
Brianne ran her hand over her cheek before answering. She could still feel the imprint of his thumb. Odd that such a rough movement could feel so gentle. There was more to this man than he’d like to admit, she mused.
If he put the question to her that way, it meant he wasn’t planning on taking the rest of the day off himself. She wanted no special treatment. The deal was to follow him around from dawn to dusk.
“No,” she answered. “I don’t. What else is on your schedule for today?”
He might have known it wasn’t going to be easy getting rid of her. Okay, she asked for it. “There’s a length of fence we have to finish mending.”
We. He really didn’t believe in letting others do his work for him. She liked that.
“Fine.” Brianne put the lens cap on her camera. “I’ll come along.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Kent heard some of his men snicker behind him. They all seemed to like having her around. Since he’d brought her with him and introduced her around, all of them had been behaving like a bunch of bumbling adolescents. He’d caught his foreman, Jack Russell, almost preening in front of her. And he was getting married in a week. Some of the others actually stopped what they were doing and posed for her, when they weren’t hamming it up.
And when she asked them to line up for a group shot, they’d practically fallen over each other to oblige. You would have thought that there was some kind of prize being awarded at the end of the day.
Well, maybe they wanted to get her attention, but he sure as hell didn’t The more they tried to please her, the harder he was on her. He still hadn’t quite figured out why he reacted that way, but he saw no reason to burden himself with the puzzle. Most likely it was because he saw her as a damn nuisance and nothing more complicated than that.
He frowned at her as he mounted his horse. “I can still take you back. Last chance.”
Cowboys Are For Loving Page 4
