Right now he was covered with dust, and she was covered with flour. She was attempting to work the sticky biscuit dough with her hands, but her arms were white to the elbow, and while the apron she wore had caught the worst of it, her calico dress was pretty well covered, too.
Her own clothes had been deemed, by Olivia, to be unsuitable for everyday wear. The older woman had presented Grace with several plain dresses, dresses that had belonged to Olivia’s daughter before the young Alice had outgrown them, married, and moved to Dallas.
“Well.” Grace sighed with disgust. “These are supposed to be biscuits, but I’m not convinced yet.” She stopped talking suddenly, her heart in her throat. Dillon was right behind her, so close she could feel the heat radiating off of his body and his breath against her neck.
“Looks like the makings for biscuits to me,” Dillon said softly.
Grace had piled her hair on top of her head earlier in the day, trying to keep herself as cool as possible, and his mouth was there, close to her skin. And then he leaned down and rested his chin on her shoulder.
Her initial response was to jerk away from him, but she didn’t. In fact she rather liked it…though it made her so nervous her heart started to beat much too fast.
“What’s the matter, Becket? So tired you can’t keep your own head up?”
“Yep.”
Grace punched the dough, and a glob stuck to her hand.
“You need more flour,” Dillon said softly.
Grace grabbed a handful of flour and tossed it onto the dough. A cloud of flour rose off the dough, covering her even more than she already was. But he was right. As she worked the flour in, with Dillon’s chin resting on her shoulder, the glob before her turned into biscuit dough. At least, it resembled the dough she’d watched Olivia work in the past several days.
One arm snaked around her waist as she kneaded the dough, and Dillon pulled her toward him—just a little—so that her back was against his chest. Grace started to protest, but the words caught in her throat. He’d been in the sun all day, and it was as if his skin had soaked up the sun, and now he was giving that heat to her…a gift at the end of the day.
She started to ask him what he was doing, but she was afraid if she did he would move away. Grace had never liked to be held, had cringed when exuberant friends hugged her and grown cold when men took her hand and kissed it. But this was different. Just as the almost-kiss had been different…just as Dillon Becket was different from every man she’d ever known.
So she kneaded the dough and ignored the hand that was splayed across her stomach and the breath at her neck. She pressed the heels of her hands into the dough, just as Olivia had instructed her, and folded the dough again and again. Dillon barely moved, except to begin rocking the thumb of the hand at her midsection back and forth in a slow, steady motion. When Grace looked down she could see the movement of that hand, trapped between her apron and the rose-colored calico.
“So,” Dillon drawled. “How do you like the Double B so far?”
Grace started slightly at his question, and kept her eyes on the biscuit dough. “Just fine. It’s really very peaceful here, if a little hot.”
“Wait till summer gets here. August can be a real killer.”
Grace licked her dry lips and beat the biscuit dough viciously. “Olivia is very nice, and so is Billy.” She tried to keep her voice even, but there was a slight tremble there.
“What about me, Grace? Am I…nice?”
Grace’s heart had been beating fast, and now it beat so rapidly she couldn’t get a good breath. Dillon’s hand moved upward, just slightly, so that it rested under her breast, over her heart.
“I…I’ve barely seen you since I got here,” Grace said, emphasizing her words with a swift blow to the dough. “But you’ve never struck me as being particularly nice.”
He murmured, apparently in agreement, and just when Grace was prepared to turn around and gently push him away, he slanted his head and kissed her on the neck. It was a quick brush of his lips across the tender skin at her neck, there where it curved into her shoulder…and then he released her. By the time Grace had collected herself enough to turn her head, Dillon was already backing away.
But his eyes were still on her, and her heart still beat too fast.
Dillon washed up in the bunkhouse, and if he’d been able to carry a tune he would have been whistling or humming. All week he’d tried to avoid Grace, and he wondered how to proceed.
She’d wanted him to kiss her there in the parlor…but he’d wondered later if the direct approach might not scare her off. He had a feeling she would bolt if she felt threatened. Straight to the Wilkinson ranch, most likely. Abigail would be all too willing to take her in. Abigail and Wade. He’d thought about actually asking if he could court her, as Wade had, but that seemed to make about as much sense as the first option. He didn’t have much patience with courting—chaperons and rules and such—and didn’t figure that would last long. Even with Grace.
He had to find a way to make her comfortable with him. She was already settling in nicely at the Double B. Not once had he heard a complaint about the plain accommodations or the fact that she was expected to help Olivia. It surprised him a little that she’d taken to the Double B so quickly, but that wasn’t enough. There had to be a way to make her take to him. Something between grabbing her up and kissing her and spending the next six months in a ritual dance.
When he’d come across her in the kitchen he’d known what to do. She’d looked so tempting there in that pink calico. The hair on top of her head had probably once been secured neatly, but a few strands had escaped and fell across her shoulder. She’d looked as irresistible to him as she had when she’d stepped from the steamer in New Orleans.
So he’d laid his chin on her shoulder, and then he’d wrapped his arm around her waist. He’d felt her heart race, as his own had, and had waited for her to pull away.
But she hadn’t. Even when he’d kissed her neck—it had been too tempting not to—she hadn’t pulled away.
Dillon whipped off the dusty shirt he’d been wearing and tossed it to the floor. He dipped a thin towel into a barrel of cold water and started to scrub his face, his neck, and his arms.
“What the heck is the matter with you?”
The question pulled Dillon to the present, and he turned to glare at Billy as the man entered the bunkhouse with the same intent he had. Billy had already removed his vest, and was unbuttoning his filthy shirt.
“Nothing.” Dillon resumed scrubbing.
“Well,” Billy said in obvious disbelief. “I haven’t seen you grin like that since you was thirteen. As I recall, you was smokin’ one of your daddy’s cigars and thought you’d got away with it.”
“And I would have, if not for your big mouth,” Dillon reminded the older man.
“It wasn’t the cigar I was worried about, mind you,” Billy said as he joined Dillon at the barrel. “It was that bottle of whiskey in the other hand that concerned me.”
Dillon didn’t answer, but continued to clean himself as well as he could under the conditions.
Billy was silent as well as they prepared to go to Olivia’s supper table. The rest of the hands would be in shortly. They had their own supper table, and their own cook. One who wasn’t quite so demanding. Olivia always insisted that they come to the table clean.
Dillon couldn’t remember how old he’d been when she’d stopped checking his hands as he took his chair. Too old. Some nights he expected her to take his hands and check under the fingernails for dirt, still.
Even if Olivia weren’t so particular, he didn’t want to sit down across from Grace covered with dirt and sweat. Not tonight.
“So,” Billy said thoughtfully as they donned clean shirts and headed for the house. “What kinda trouble you gettin’ yourself into this time?”
Chapter Eight
During the days that had passed since her arrival at the Double B, Grace had become accustomed to the inf
lexible schedule. Billy and Dillon were up before dawn and out of the house before Grace left her bedroom. Dillon’s room was just down the hall from hers, and sometimes—early in the morning or very late at night—Grace would hear his footsteps in the hallway outside her door.
When Grace found her way to the kitchen each morning, Olivia was always there, looking fresher than anyone had a right to so early in the morning. There were chores to be done, around the house and in the barn, and Olivia was easing Grace into a routine of her own.
But in the evenings the four of them had supper together. It was a ritual that had apparently existed even before her arrival. Olivia talked about her garden or whether or not the chickens were producing enough eggs, and Dillon and Billy talked about the ranch and what they’d done that day.
Grace listened silently each night, trying to absorb it all, trying to understand this place and these people. It was hard work, running a ranch, and Dillon didn’t expect anyone to work any harder than he did. But neither did he expect them to work any less.
Grace took special care preparing herself for supper on this evening, shedding the flour-dusted calico and slipping into a blue-striped muslin dress trimmed with ribbons. It had a plain collar, so at the last minute Grace delved into her jewelry box and fastened a strand of pearls at her throat. A matching bracelet graced her wrist, and she took a moment to study her reflection in the mirror.
Did she have the nerve to face Dillon at the table? He always sat directly across from her, while Billy sat at the head of the table and Olivia sat at the foot, nearest the kitchen door. It had seemed, that first night, an odd arrangement, eating with the servants, but it hadn’t taken her long to discover that Billy and Olivia were much more than ranch hand and housekeeper. They were the only family Dillon had.
They laughed and cared for one another like no family Grace had ever known. It was the way she had always imagined family life should be, though she’d seen again and again that such attachments were rare. Her own family had been almost nonexistent. A father who ignored her, and an elderly aunt who’d shipped her off to school as soon as it was possible. Grace hadn’t shed a tear when word reached her at school that the old woman had died.
She did remember a moment of panic when she’d heard the news of her aunt’s death, a wrenching clutch deep inside that had reminded her how truly alone she was in the world.
She felt less alone now than at any other time in her life.
“Grace made these biscuits herself,” Olivia declared proudly, slathering butter on one. They were golden brown and appeared to be edible, at least. Grace waited almost anxiously for Olivia’s reaction.
Olivia took a small bite and chewed it slowly, testing. “You might have overworked the dough a bit. You must treat any bread dough gently, or the finished product will be tough.”
Dillon broke a biscuit in half and popped the entire piece, devoid of butter or honey, into his mouth. “Tastes great to me,” he said before he had even swallowed.
Billy laughed, but drizzled honey onto his own biscuit before he took a big bite. Then he nodded his head in agreement.
Grace smiled slightly. She knew that Dillon and Billy would have said the same, even if the biscuits were all but inedible.
“I was a bit distracted while I was working the dough,” she said, staring at her plate. “I’ll be gentler next time.”
She knew Dillon was looking at her, even though she didn’t dare lift her eyes to make certain. How could she ever look him in the face again?
Olivia clasped her hands together, obviously excited as an idea occurred to her. “I know! Let’s have a party and invite everyone to meet Grace.”
Grace stared at her plate, and Billy was silent, but Dillon answered after a long pause.
“Oh, Grace has met just about everybody in these parts already.”
His voice was so calm, so nonchalant, that Grace lifted her eyes to look at him. He was staring right at her as Olivia asked, obviously peeved at being excluded, when this had happened.
Dillon told her, in great detail, what Grace had done at Abigail Wilkinson’s party. Most of the story was new to Billy, too, since he had been at his guard post outside her bedroom door at the time, thinking she was asleep. Perhaps he’d heard rumors in the bunkhouse, but sensible Billy would certainly dismiss such stories as outrageous and impossible.
Before he was finished with his telling of the story, Olivia and Billy were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes, and Dillon wore one of his rare grins. Grace’s face was so warm, she knew she must be blushing beet red, but she said nothing.
Olivia wiped the tears from her face as Dillon finished the story. “But why did you tell her she couldn’t go downstairs in the first place?”
“He was probably afraid I would embarrass him in front of his friends,” Grace said, trying to add a sharp edge to her voice.
“That doesn’t sound like Dillon,” Olivia said, admonishment in her voice.
“That’s not why,” Billy added, turning his attention to his plate.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Dillon said shortly. “I need another biscuit.”
But Grace would not allow the subject to be dropped. She’d wondered…and now she knew there was another answer. “Why, then?” She turned to Billy, casting a quick eye to Dillon. His grin had faded, and his good humor was quickly disappearing.
Billy glanced at Dillon first, apparently weighing his options. “It’s like this.” He looked at Olivia, practically ignoring the parties involved. “Grace looked too good.”
“What do you mean, she looked too good?” Olivia asked, as puzzled as Grace was.
Billy shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat.
Dillon cursed under his breath, was rewarded with a biting glare from Olivia, and then he stared across the table at Grace.
“He’s right. Pretty stupid, I guess.” His gray eyes darkened as he continued to look at her. “Pretty selfish, actually. I wasn’t prepared…. I didn’t know what to do with you, Grace.”
“For future reference, Becket,” Grace said sweetly, “taking my clothes and locking me in a room is not a suitable action.”
His face paled and then reddened a little at her words, but Grace paid that no mind. He hadn’t locked her away because he’d been ashamed of her. He’d been…what? Afraid to present her to Abigail? At least that made some sense. Especially since Abigail no doubt had expected her to be a child, just as Dillon had.
Grace felt something ugly growing in her chest. It was heavy and uncomfortable and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She was jealous of that pasty-faced Abigail Wilkinson.
In a short time Dillon Becket had become important to her. As her protector, as her friend. As a man she was drawn to without question. And now there was more. Something between them that he had unleashed that afternoon, with his hand on her belly and his lips on her neck.
Grace’s arms ached and her hands were burning. She was working the butter churn just as Olivia had instructed, but it was taking forever.
She sat on a stool with the churn between her knees. How many times had she slapped butter onto a biscuit or a potato without wondering how it came to the table?
And eggs, too. There were three small red scratches on the back of her right hand where she’d been pecked by a protective hen.
The longer she worked, the angrier she became. All those years of study for nothing. What was she going to do? Speak Latin to the cows as she milked them? Ugh! Now there was another disgusting chore. Perhaps she could recite Shakespeare to the chickens as they attacked her, or curse the blasted things in French.
A trickle of sweat ran down her back, and Grace closed her eyes. What was she doing here?
When she opened her eyes he was standing there in the wide doorway, leaning against the raw wood as relaxed as you please with his hands behind his back.
“Becket,” she spat. She’d barely seen him for the past three days, and Billy had made his excuses at th
e supper table.
“Grace,” he answered in a more civil tongue than she had been able to manage. “I see Olivia is keeping you busy.”
Grace stopped briefly, and then resumed her chore angrily. “Busy? I guess you could say that.” She gave him a colorful accounting of the chores she had been assigned, and her descriptions had him smiling before she was done.
“It’s not funny, Becket,” she snapped.
“I asked Olivia if you’d been giving her any trouble, and she assured me that you’d been as good as gold. I should’ve known you were saving your grievances for me.”
“It’s not Olivia’s fault,” Grace said, lowering her voice. “Heaven knows the woman works hard enough, herself. I want to help her, I really do, but…but…”
“Everybody pulls their own weight around here,” Dillon said calmly. “You’ll get used to it.” He seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing that Grace was further incensed, and she stood up clumsily.
“I’ll never get used to this. It’s too blasted hot, and it’s not even summertime yet. I fall into bed every night so exhausted I can barely keep my eyes open, and when I wake in the morning I can barely crawl from under the covers.” She thrust her hands out in front of her, palms upward. “And look at this.” She glanced down at her own red, raw palms.
Dillon stepped into the shadow of the barn and took one hand in his. His other hand was still held behind his back as he frowned at her.
“Dammit, didn’t Olivia give you a pair of gloves to wear?”
Grace nodded toward the leather gloves on the straw beside her stool. “They were too big, and very hot, and they kept slipping and my hands were sweaty….”
Dillon gripped her wrist in his hand. His skin was so brown, so dark against her own pale arm, she couldn’t help but stare. He didn’t let her go as he pulled a crude bouquet from behind his back.
“What are those?”
Dillon looked almost embarrassed, and Grace wondered if he’d ever given a woman flowers before. It seemed terribly out of character.
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