by Lissa- Sugar
Lissa blew a strand of snow-dampened hair out of her eyes.
Ridiculous.
The man was a stranger. She’d never seen him until today.
As for what he’d just said, and with such disdain… Well, he was a cowboy. He was a man accustomed to a rugged life. Things like hot tubs and saunas wouldn’t mean much to him, but they were the amenities that attracted the kind of clientele she wanted to cook for, the kind of clientele that had brought her here, and she wasn’t about to apologize for that.
And, really, there was no logic in making an enemy of a man who worked on the Triple G, so she forced herself to speak pleasantly.
“You’re right. I am wondering where those things are. I did notice several outbuildings, but where’s everything else? Maybe it’s the snow, but I can’t see much from here.”
“There’s a bunkhouse a couple of hundred yards away.”
“I’m not interested in the bunkhouse. It’s a nice touch, though. Authentic.”
He laughed again. God almighty, she hated that laugh! Remaining pleasant was going to be difficult.
“Oh, it’s authentic, all right.”
“Look, I’m not trying to pick a quarrel. I just want to know where the lodge is.”
“There is no lodge.”
So much for trying to be pleasant! Lissa slapped her hands on her hips.
“Are you being deliberately dense? So I’m using the wrong word. You know what I mean.” The cowboy dropped the suitcase, opened the massive wooden door and kicked the suitcase through it. “And do not, I repeat, do not treat my luggage as if it were a—a soccer ball!”
She swept past him, snatched up the suitcase…and found herself standing in an entry hall that looked pretty much like the entry hall in lots of ranch homes back in Texas. Not El Sueño, of course; despite its prize-horse-breeding program, its cattle, its acres of land given over to oil, El Sueño was a mansion disguised as a house, but growing up she’d had friends who lived on working ranches and they’d all looked like this. Dark wood paneling. Dark wood floors. Dead animals staring glassy-eyed from the walls. The smell of coffee and the faint-but-always-there scent of horses permeating the air.
A knot formed in Lissa’s belly. She heard the despicable cowboy limp up behind her, felt his presence loom over her.
“Welcome to the Triple G,” he said.
He didn’t say it nicely, but to hell with that.
“This,” Lissa said slowly, “this is it?”
“This is it,” he said, unbuttoning his denim jacket and working it off without dislodging the crutch under his left arm. “Not quite what you expected, Duchess?”
“Is it a—a boarding house?”
“It’s a home. At least, it used to be. Now it’s just tired house on a tired ranch.”
Nick limped past Lissa Wilde and hung his jacket on a big hook in one of the pine walls. He left the Stetson on. The last thing he needed was for a woman heading back to La La Land to recognize him. There were a dozen rumors about what had happened to him and where he was; he certainly wasn’t going to send the Wilde babe back to Hollywood to spread the word that she’d found the elusive Nick Gentry.
“But—but Marcia said…”
“Yeah. I can just imagine what she said. It was enough to bring you running in hopes of shaking your shapely ass for some Hollywood hotshot, but there ain’t no Hollywood hotshots here.”
For a long moment, nothing happened. Lissa Wilde didn’t move or speak. Her disappointment was damn near palpable and he almost felt sorry for her until he reminded himself that feeling sorry for someone changed nothing.
Besides, he knew the type.
He’d dealt with it from the minute he’d earned his first box-office hit.
Small-town girl, pretty enough—this one certainly was—grows up hearing people tell her she’s beautiful, wins a couple of contests—Homecoming Queen, Miss Peach Blossom, whatever—and decides she’s going to be the next hot movie queen. That she has no talent doesn’t mean a damn. She figures all she needs is looks and a lucky break. Getting discovered by an agent while she’s waiting tables. Being noticed by a director while she’s working the bar at a fancy restaurant.
A hot babe passing herself off as a cook was a new one, but, hey, you wanted to make it big, you went with whatever you figured would work.
A cook. A chef. Right, Nick thought with world-weary cynicism. If Lissa Wilde— blond, blue-eyed, great face, five four or five, a hundred ten or twenty pounds of tits, legs and ass—had cooking skills, she’d picked them up working her way west in a succession of roadside diners.
It was just his luck that he’d have to tolerate her until the storm passed. The second it did, he’d call Hank, tell him to fly back from the airport at Billings—
“You have me all figured out.”
Her voice was low. Frigid. Nick shrugged, or tried to. Shrugging was another of those simple things that turned out to be hard to do with a crutch under your arm.
“Yeah, well, it’s not as if your type is unique.”
She spun toward him. Fire blazed in her eyes. They were, he had to admit, interesting eyes. Blue, he’d thought…but maybe they were green.
Not that he gave a damn.
“You,” she said, “you are, without question…”
“Yeah, yeah. A nasty, insolent SOB. You already said that.”
“Those descriptions don’t even come close.” She dropped the suitcase, raised her chin, pointed an index finger at his chest. “I am a classically trained chef. I plan menus. I create dishes. I run a kitchen and supervise its staff.” That pointing finger found its mark in the center of his rib cage and jabbed none too gently. “I do not, do not ever shake my ass at anybody. You got that, cowboy?”
“Uh huh. You’re not the least bit interested in being the next Jennifer Lawrence or Megan Fox or Christ knows who else, discovered waiting tables or slinging hash at The Griddle Café.”
“I am not a wannbe actress! I am a chef! You think I’d have accepted this job in the middle of the wilderness if I weren’t? Although it’s pretty clear that there isn’t a job here.” Those amazing eyes narrowed. “Which brings me to the obvious question, Bannister. Why did you tell my agent you needed a cook?”
“Because I do. I need a cook. Not a chef. Not somebody who knows how to—how to glaze a pan—”
“Pans get deglazed, cowboy. Not glazed.”
“Whatever they get, that’s not what I need. This is a ranch. I have six guys sweating their balls off from dawn to dusk, and I need somebody to cook for them.”
“Let me get this straight. You need somebody to cook for a—a bunch of ranch hands?”
She looked—what? Stunned. Disappointed. Well, why wouldn’t she? She’d come here expecting a cushy job in a cushy place where she could cozy up to Hollywood royalty. Even on the odd chance that she really was a cook, she sure as hell wasn’t the kind he needed.
He had half a dozen rough-and-ready guys who needed feeding three times a day, men who wouldn’t know a quiche from a casserole. You couldn’t do a day’s work on fettuccine and foie gras. God knew he’d spent enough time in Hollywood to know what passed for food in the land of the infamously famous.
“You told this to Marcia?”
“Who?”
“My agent. She knew this?”
Did she? He couldn’t remember exactly what the conversation had been. He’d phoned the agency only because he’d been desperate; he’d Googled cooks and cooking and one of the first ads that had come up was for something called Cooks Unlimited.
“She knew,” he said, because what did it matter now? He was still without a cook and he had the feeling he would be for a long time to come. If his last cook had spread the word by now, nobody in three counties would want the job.
“I want to go back to L.A.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you do.”
“Immediately.”
“Well, Duchess, there’s a little problem with that. It’s called weathe
r.”
“I don’t care about the weather! You hear me, cowboy? I am not spending another minute here.” She drew herself up, stepped closer and jabbed her finger into the center of his chest again. “You flew me in. Now you fly me—”
She gasped as Nick grabbed her hand.
“Do not,” he said through this teeth, “do not wag your finger at me again!”
“Let go!”
“And,” he growled, hauling her closer, “do not ever think of giving me orders. I’m in charge here.”
“You?”
“Me. This is my ranch. Got that?”
“You try getting this!” She pulled her hand from his. Her chin lifted to an impossible height and she glared up at him. “I don’t take orders, either. Not from anybody, but especially not from you. Understand?”
Nick stared at that gorgeous face. He just bet she didn’t take orders. But she would. From somebody who knew how to give them. Who knew how to change that hard glare of anger in her eyes to a soft blur of passion. Who knew how to make her want to take the kind of orders that would bring her to a soft bed, to raising her arms to the man who’d ordered her there, to opening her legs for him…
Jesus.
He turned away as fast as his limited mobility permitted.
He’d been without a woman, without sex for too long. For months. He hadn’t taken a woman to his bed since the accident.
That fucking accident.
And now this.
What unkind god had dropped this latest piece of bad news into his life?
“I said—”
“I heard what you said,” he growled. He swung toward her and leaned down until they were eye to eye. Hers were, indeed, green—and bright with rage.
Yeah, well, he wasn’t any happier with the situation than she was.
“Here’s the deal, Duchess.”
“Do not call me that!”
“You are here by mistake. Yours. Your agent’s. Frankly, at this point, all I know is that you’re here and you’ll be here until the storm ends. Trust me. I don’t like it any more than you do.” Unplanned, his gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. Her lips were slightly parted; she was breathing as if she’d run a race.
Or as if she were lying, sated, beneath a man. Beneath him, in the big, cold, empty four-poster upstairs…and what did that have to do with anything?
Tomorrow night, once she was out of his way, he’d take the truck into town. Go to one of the bars that clung to the mountains near the couple of big resorts, resorts like the one she’d hoped to find here. He’d shave, tame his dark hair with some goop, put on the kind of outfit dime-store cowboys wore—tight jeans, polished Tony Lamas, Western shirt, clean Stetson—and find himself a woman who’d be happy with a one-night fling.
And if she said what he’d already heard a couple of times—Hey, you look like Nick Gentry—he’d grin and give her what had become his standard answer, that the real Nick Gentry only wished he looked like him…
And then what?
How good could he be in bed?
One leg that dragged. Hell, that gave out when he least expected it.
More to the point, one leg that looked as if it had been made by Dr. Frankenstein. What woman wouldn’t find that a turn-on?
Nick straightened up and took a quick step back.
“Here’s the deal. I’ll put you up for the—”
“Dammit, I know why you seem so familiar! You’re Nick Gentry!”
“No,” he said coldly. “I’m not.”
“Of course you are.”
“Listen, Duchess, I’ve been told that before. It doesn’t impress me.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Why would it?”
Nick blinked. “Well, Gentry’s an actor. A star.”
“And?”
“Well—well, he’s—he’s famous.”
Lissa folded her arms. “Wolfgang Puck is famous.”
“Who?”
“A chef. Wolfgang Puck. He’s famous.’
“Is there a point to this?”
“I’ve dealt with a lot of actors. Stars,” she said, with a curl of the lip. “Believe me, I’m long past the point of being impressed, Mr. Gentry.”
“I told you, I’m not Gentry. Hell, Gentry would be happy if he looked like me.” The line fell as flat as it sounded. Her fault, goddammit, for making him use it. Nick covered his irritation by lifting up her suitcase. “Take one of the spare bedrooms upstairs.” His smile was all teeth. “Unless you’d rather bunk with the boys. I’m sure they’d be delighted.”
Lissa flushed. “Fine. I’ll stay in one of the upstairs bedrooms for the night.”
He wanted to laugh. She made it sound as if she were doing him a favor. Well, she owed him a favor, all right, after all the trouble he’d gone to getting her out here.
“And since you’re so determined to convince me that you know how to cook, you can repay my hospitality by making supper.”
“Not on your life.”
“Does that mean you prefer the bunkhouse?”
Lissa gritted her teeth. “I assume,” she said, each word frosted with icy sarcasm, “you have an indoor kitchen.”
“To the left, past the stairs.”
“You have a menu in mind?” she asked with saccharine sweetness. “Boeuf bourguignon? Poulet à l’orange?”
“Very funny.”
“Yes.” Her smile widened; it could have killed. “I’m known for my sense of humor.”
“Find something and cook it. Just be sure it’ll feed a bunch of hungry men.”
That took the smug smile off her face. “What hungry men?”
“I told you. This is a working ranch, Duchess. I have six guys who’ll be showing up in a couple of hours, cold, tired and hungry. They’ll expect something that will stick to their—”
Thud!
Lissa Wilde spun toward the closed door at the end of the hall. “What was that?”
Aw, hell!
Nick knew what it was.
It was Brutus. The Newfoundland.
He’d confined the dog in his office when he went to the airstrip. The big dog loved snow. Keeping him in the truck cab would have been impossible; keeping him from scaring the new cook would be been equally impossible. Nick had learned the hard way that there were lots of people scared spitless by a dog the size of a bear.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The office door shuddered. Lissa looked at Nick.
“What,” she demanded, “is making that noise?”
He thought of telling her that it was a bear. That it was a crazed moose. In the end, there was no time to tell her anything.
Two more thuds and the office door flew open. A black shape as big as her old VW hurtled toward Lissa, panting and drooling, nails scrabbling over the worn wood floor.
“Whoa,” she said, and Brutus woofed with joy when he spotted someone deserving of a Newfoundland welcome.
Amazing, considering that the dog never offered that welcome to anyone but him, but there wasn’t time to think about that; there was only time to say Brutus in a sharp voice…
Too late,
The dog flung himself at Lissa, paws flattened against her shoulders. A long pink tongue slopped across her face.
They went down in a heap, woman and dog, and Nick cursed and started the seemingly endless procedure that would lead to his divesting himself of the crutch, leaning it against the wall at an angle where he’d be able to reach it after he got them apart, and how in hell was he doing to do that when squatting or bending was damn near out of the ques—
“Oh, you beautiful baby,” Lissa Wilde said.
Nick blinked.
Brutus’s tail was wagging like a metronome gone insane.
Nick looked at his traitorous dog and the woman who wanted him to believe that she was a chef. The dog was lying on top of her; her arms were wound around his neck.
Nick felt every muscle in his body turn hard.
And decided he had to be
crazy, because surely he was the first man on earth to envy a dog.
CHAPTER FOUR
He had definitely been too long without a woman.
There was absolutely no other way to explain it.
He was standing in a cold, drafty hallway, watching his dog rolling around on the floor with a woman who had quickly become a pain in the ass, and he was envious of the dog.
He was crazy. Without question, Nick decided, and stood as straight as that goddamn crutch would allow.
“Brutus,” he said sharply. “Come here!”
The dog looked up, flashed a doggy grin and went back to nuzzling the woman stretched out under him.
“Brutus! I said come! Dammit, dog—”
“Woof!”
Nick felt his jaw tighten. The Newf’s tail was wagging even harder, fast enough for imminent takeoff. The woman was laughing and rubbing his head. Encouraging him. Urging him on. Making it clear that not even a dog had to show him respect.
Nick could all but feel his temperature rising. His blood boiling. His gut twisting, or whatever the hell happened when a man was fast losing what little remained of his composure.
Dammit, Lissa Wilde had been nothing but trouble from the get-go. Landing a job under false pretenses, because no matter what she said, he didn’t for a minute believe that she was a cook. Wasting his time letting him fly her here.
He was dealing with a bunch of wranglers who thought that saying things like Dude, I could eat an elephant was simply a new way to start a meal.
Now, he had to deal with this.
His dog, a dog that—unfortunately—wouldn’t obey any human being in the world except him, was refusing to respond to the simplest command.
Impossible, Nick decided, and narrowed his eyes.
“Let go of my dog.”
Ah, man, what a stupid thing to say! The dog had the woman pinned down and he was telling her to let go of the dog?
Nick tried again.
“The dog,” he said coldly, “is not a pet.”
Jesus. This was going from bad to worse. The dog is not a pet? Had he really said that? Well, hell. He had to say something, didn’t he? Yeah. He damn well did.
