Waiting for her to continue, Kirk sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim of the mug. “And?” he prodded gently when she said no more.
She stared at the still-dark window where the snow had collected in a thick diagonal pad. A few flakes stuck higher up, then melted, running down the glass like tears. “And it bombed. And he hung himself. End of story.”
Several minutes passed before Kirk stood and walked up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders in a warm and comforting gesture. “I’m sorry, Liss.”
She turned her face up to him. “I was, too. I think we would have made it, somehow. He was beginning to . . . grow up. Beginning to take responsibility. Trouble was, that time he took too much on himself. When it didn’t pan out, he couldn’t bear it. When I saw my in-laws trying to turn my sons into little replicas of their father by giving them everything they asked for I knew I had to get out.”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders, then leaned over her to pick up his empty plate. “And now you’re afraid I’ll interfere,” he said as he carried the plate to the sink. “I can understand that, Liss, but I promise you, I’ll try not to. What I did last night was wrong, not just the knife thing, but keeping Ryan out too late. I knew you wanted him in, but I was enjoying his company. He’s a nice little boy. They both are. I guess I wanted to show him something my dad showed me when I was a kid. You know, sort of pass something on to the next generation?”
She rose to pour herself more coffee, then stood by the counter looking at him. The light made his thick, straight hair gleam like polished bronze. “I thought you didn’t meet your father until you were over thirty.”
He retrieved his own cup, then leaned against the counter. “I’m not talking about Brose. My dad was Martin Allbright. He and my mom got married when I was eleven.” He smiled sadly, looking into a distance she couldn’t see. “He died eight years ago. That’s when my mom told me about Brose and where to find him.” He shrugged. “I’m still not sure why I came. I guess, in a way, I was hoping to find a replacement.”
“Did you?”
He laughed harshly and swallowed the rest of his coffee. Setting the cup in the sink, he turned to face her. “Hell no. Brose was a hard, bitter man, and I stayed only because I needed work and he paid me well. That was when the recession was at its worst and it was damned hard to get a job in the oil fields, where I’d worked since I was eighteen. Also, I found I liked the life. After I’d been here a couple of years, he said he might leave me the ranch if I worked hard enough for it. I’m still not sure why.”
“You were his son, Kirk, though he didn’t know about you until you were an adult. It must have counted for something.”
He shook his head. “Not a lot, because I’m also Betty Allbright’s son, and believe me, his bitterness toward her for not telling him about me years ago knew no bounds.”
They were silent for a minute, then Liss said softly, “In the letter he left me, he said that his soul died when my aunt did, and that he only got it back when Reverend Daisy showed him the way.”
Again, Kirk’s laugh held little humor. “Reverend Daisy,” he said, “scared the devil out of him. Literally. He met her after he was diagnosed with cancer, and any man when faced with death, even a man like Brose, is up for grabs if the right preacher comes along.”
“So,” Liss said, “because she got him and turned him around, Mrs. Healey and I get to share your inheritance, because Uncle Ambrose wanted to make amends for his wrongdoings, real or imaginary. Doesn’t the injustice of that bother you?”
He gazed thoughtfully across the room for several moments. “No. Mrs. Healey worked like a slave for him, and your aunt, if she’d lived, might have asked you here herself. “ Before she could move away, he stepped closer to her and slid a hand around the back of her neck. “Besides, I think having you here is going to have its . . . rewards.”
Mama cat purred contentedly to her mewing babies. The kitchen was warm and redolent of bacon and coffee, creating an aura of security that Liss found oddly disturbing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel safe and warm and protected here, wasn’t certain if it was wise to let Kirk look to her for rewards. Even as she fought it, a heavy heat curled deep inside her, making her shift restlessly. As if it had been a signal, Kirk bent down and took her mouth in a long, leisurely kiss that made her tremble from the inside out.
“I want to do a lot of that,” he murmured moments later, sliding his lips over her cheek, then nibbling on her earlobe. “Every time I look at you, that’s what I want to do.”
“Kirk, please,” she whispered, gazing at him, feeling bemused, weak, and dazed.
His breath was warm on her face, his eyes hooded as he smiled at her. “Please what?” He traced the shape of one cheekbone with a thumb, then grazed over the scar on her chin. “Kiss you again? I plan to. But I have to catch my breath first.”
Heat pulsed through her as she let herself think about kissing him again. After a moment, while her imagination leaped as wildly as her pulse, she shook her head. “No. “ She shivered and inched back from him, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Don’t do it again.” Even to herself, though, she sounded tentative and unsure.
He stood back and looked at her for several seconds, then nodded. “Whatever you say.” His tone held amusement. “Unless you mean not ever?” He tilted his head to one side, clearly awaiting a reply.
“No!” She, shook her head vigorously. “Uh, I mean, yes. I . . . Dammit, I don’t know what I mean.” She took another step away, resentful that he could create this kind of turmoil within her, with need and fear and yearning all mixed up together, and appear so unaffected himself. It simply pointed up the differences between them—he with his obvious experience and she with her relative lack of it. “I think we should stick with being friends,” she finished.
“Okay, Liss. I’d like to have you as a friend.” She flicked a glance at him, saw the laughter in his eyes, the warmth, the caring, and ached to respond to it. After all, friendship didn’t have to preclude . . . other things, did it? It would be so very easy to close the distance between them, to reach for him and feel his arms fold around her again. . . . Abruptly, as if the subject weren’t worth pursuing, he shrugged and said, “I have a bunch of hungry cattle waiting for their morning feed, so I suppose I’d better get at it.”
She nodded and watched silently as he tugged on his heavy jacket, his gloves and planted his Stetson square on his head. As he opened the back door, she saw that it was still dark. He strode outside without a backward glance, and she sat at the table, head in her hands, wondering if her world would ever stand true on its axis again. This was unbelievable! Here she was, on her first real working day at Whittier Ranch, and she’d not only blown her morning task by sitting idly by and watching Kirk cook his own breakfast, she had told him things she rarely told anybody. She had listened to confidences she suspected he didn’t often share. She had let him kiss her until she couldn’t see straight-and it wasn’t even daylight!
* * * *
To Liss’s relief Kirk poked his head in the door briefly at midmorning and said not to expect him for lunch. That gave her more time to get herself under control before having to face him again. When the boys woke up from their afternoon nap, it had stopped snowing and the sun shone brightly again. She dressed them and herself warmly, stuffed film, filters, and lenses into her smallest tote, and draped a camera around her neck. It was time she investigated this ranch Uncle Ambrose had made her part of.
She stepped out onto the back porch, then halted at the sight of Kirk. He was in the yard with his dog, busy embellishing their snowman by sculpting arms across its chest. Under one of those arms he’d stuck a battered stable broom, and on the snowman’s head perched an old slouch hat. Kirk looked up as Ryan and Jason shouted to him, then grinned self-consciously and tilted his Stetson back.
“Hi, buddy,” he said to Ryan as the little boy raced to his side. Kirk’s eyes, though, silver-gray and full of blatant
appreciation, were on Liss. Her emotions caromed around inside her, emotions she wasn’t sure she liked, but his smile affected her as it always did with a delicious quivering in her stomach.
Jason tore his hand from her too-tight grip and ran to Kirk’s side as well. Liss, however, remained frozen on the porch, mesmerized by his intent gaze, her hands suddenly unsteady on her camera as her heart and stomach temporarily traded places, then flip-flopped back. She forced herself to ignore those sensations and tear her gaze free, then slipped off her gloves to take several shots out across the backyard. When she finished and ran down the back steps, she slipped as she hit the snow. Kirk shot out a steadying hand to catch her, and she had to swallow a time or two before she could even say hello.
He gestured toward her camera. “Back at work, I see.”
This, she could talk about, Liss thought happily. “I hope so. I don’t have a lot of experience with the effects snow has on light, shadow and contrast, but my agent wants me to experiment.”
Kirk heard the lilt of excitement and enthusiasm in her tone. “Agent?”
She nodded, and explained how she’d taken the time on the trip up to the ranch to get some work done and sent it to an old friend who had acted as her agent before. “I talked to him again this morning and he’s as excited as I am about the opportunities I’ll have up here for some really great stuff.” With a small shrug, she added, “But he’s also an old friend, so the proof of my work will naturally be in the selling.”
Kirk stiffened. Her agent was a man, and an old friend? How good a friend? The question stirred up something primitive and shockingly possessive in him that he didn’t like at all.
Liss misinterpreted his sharp glance, and her mouth pulled taut. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t neglect my household duties. You’ll still get fed, even if I do take an hour off now and then to exercise my camera.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Kirk rescued the broom from Ryan’s energetic attempts to brush snow off it, then followed as Liss ran after Jason. He’d decided to explore and was heading straight for the fenced pasture where the horse cavorted. The dog beat her to it, not touching the little boy, but herding him back toward her.
“Hold it, bub!” she said, swinging Jason up onto her hip as Kirk, with Ryan in tow, sauntered up. “Remember, I said we’d stick together until we know what’s safe and what’s not.” She set him down in a tractor rut and turned him loose with the dog.
“How about I take you on a guided tour,” Kirk said. “It’s a good idea for all three of you to know where you shouldn’t go for your own safety. “
Liss hesitated, then asked, “Don’t you have work to do? I’d hate to keep you from important things.” Kirk was astounded to realize she was serious. In his experience, women were all too happy to keep a man from his work. They saw it as a rival for his attention and went out of their way to draw him from it.
“I hate to admit it, Liss,” he said, walking alongside her as she followed her sons, “but this time of year, there isn’t a lot to do on a ranch of this size except keeping the animals fed and the equipment in running order. Besides, what could be more important than showing my partner over our spread?” He smiled and took her gloved hand in his.
Partner, Liss thought, casting a sidelong glance at him. The word had a nice sound to it. It was a long time since she’d felt like anybody’s partner. And even longer since she’d walked anywhere with her hand held in such a strong clasp, with a warmth she could feel right through to her soul.
Twisting her hand loose from that all-too-comfortable clasp, she ran a few paces ahead, then turned and walked backward up a gentle slope, her camera in constant action.
When Kirk realized Jason was having trouble in the deep snow, he dropped his big hat onto Ryan’s head and lifted Jason onto his shoulders. Ryan beamed up at him from under the hat, then grabbed on to Marsh’s collar as Kirk suggested, letting the strong dog pull him up the hill. From his high perch Jason squealed with delight as he clutched Kirk’s forehead with both mittened hands and bounced on his shoulders. Liss’s heart filled with happiness as she saw how much fun her children were having, how relaxed and at home they were after only three days there. Three days? Yes. She remembered with shock how relaxed and at home she’d felt that morning in Kirk’s arms. Exactly the way she’d felt Friday night, and Sunday . . .
Darn it, she thought, she had to stop what was happening to her. It was fine for her children to succumb to his charms, fine for them to adapt so easily to living on the ranch with him, but it wasn’t fine for her. She was an adult, a supposedly intelligent one, and intelligent adults didn’t leap into situations simply because it felt good. They acted with caution, prudently and thoughtfully, she told herself severely, and didn’t simply let circumstances carry them along like a piece of wood in a fast-moving river.
Satisfied with her little lecture, Liss panned her camera around and found the barn and the horse in her viewfinder. She turned the lens for better focus, and as she caught the prancing animal in mid-leap, a laugh burst forth spontaneously. “What’s funny?” Kirk asked.
She turned and focused on his face, adjusting the lens, bringing him closer, closer, close enough to see the slight stubble of his beard, the question in his eyes, the amusement. She’d meant merely to look at him for a moment, but she was captivated by the expression in his eyes. The stark shadow from Jason’s arm bisected his face, contrasting with the bright arc of sunlight that slanted over his left cheek, turning his skin ruddy and his blond hair to molten gold. His neck rose in a strong column from the loose collar of his jacket, bracketed by Jason’s stubby legs, and his hands looked enormous wrapped around the child’s ankles.
Another slight adjustment of her telephoto lens brought his image close enough to kiss.
Quickly she dropped the camera. “Your horse looks as if he belongs on a carousel,” she said. As he turned to gaze down the hill toward the barn, she captured his strong profile. Click and whir . . . click and whir . . . She danced several feet to one side, seeking a different angle. Kirk’s eyes followed her. He turned to face the lens no matter where she went. She continued to click and click and click, until she realized what she was doing. Finally lowering the camera, she lowered her gaze, too, and switched to her digital camera. Angling higher this time, she captured several shots of Jason’s laughing face with the bright blue sky behind him, and a couple of Ryan, who tended to hide from the camera. He was visible only as a huge hat covering most of his face above his grin, and his hands were buried in Marsh’s thick nape fur.
Kirk set Jason down and the two boys tumbled to the snow, flattening out and making angels while the dog jumped around them, licking faces, eliciting giggles and shrieks. To Liss’s shock, a rush of tears flooded her eyes as she watched. Before she could blink them away, they spilled over, hot on her cold cheeks. With a frown and a muttered curse, Kirk leaped toward her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, grasping her hand and wiping away the tears himself.
She swallowed hard, shook her head, and sniffled. “I don’t know. Nothing. I just . . . Look at them. They’re so happy!”
He relaxed, then nodded, smiling down at her. Lifting her hand again, he stroked her face from her temple to her chin. “And how about their mom?”
Slowly, she smiled. “ I think I am, too.”
“Good.” His tone was filled with satisfaction. “I think the country agrees with you, city girl.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, laughing. “How could a place without so much as a regular daily paper agree with me?”
“Maybe there are . . . compensations.”
“Maybe,” she said breathlessly, and to show him what she meant, she aimed her camera at the mountain peaks gleaming in the sun. She told herself that that was what she meant, that she was happy merely because her children were. That was what made being there worthwhile, the snow and cold and Mrs. Healey and the lack of a regular daily paper notwithstanding.
; It had nothing to do with Kirk Allbright’s smile. Nothing at all.
* * * *
“This is how I feed the stock,” Kirk said, putting Jason down again now that they could walk in the tractor’s ruts along a fence line beside long rows of feeding racks. “See that haystack over there?” He pointed to a snow-covered mound. Several more like it dotted the landscape near other pastures. “There’s fodder under a tarp there, and every morning, more often when the weather’s bad, I come out with the tractor and haul bales of hay close to the fence line, then heave them into the bins.”
He glanced at Liss and smiled. “That’s what I was doing the day you arrived—what I’d been doing for several days prior to that.”
She bit her lip. “And there I was, screaming at you for not being home to let me in. No wonder you weren’t happy to see me.”
He touched her face with one warm finger. She wondered how it could be so warm in the thin, cold mountain air. Between series of photographs, she was quick to put her gloves back on. “It didn’t take me long to change my mind,” he said, dropping his hand to her shoulder. “One taste of your . . . chocolate cake and I was done for.” His words said “cake” while his eyes said “kisses.”
Liss shifted sideways to escape the warm weight of that hand. “Duncan Hines had more to do with that cake than I did,” she said, feeling inordinately hurt by his words, regardless of what his eyes might say. Yet, she asked herself, was there any thing wrong with being appreciated for baking cakes? Cakes and kisses. Food and sex. Those were important ingredients in a man’s happiness, weren’t they? He claimed to have provided food for himself quite efficiently since his father died, though he was happy to turn the kitchen over to her. As for sex . . . It seemed he hadn’t been lacking anything in that department either, so why was he flirting with her? Simply because, like her cooking, he thought her body might be available? Since it was conveniently here, he might as well put it to use?
City Girl Page 8
