"About me shooting down your suggestions."
She nodded sagely. "Ah. So you're in favor of Tony, then?"
He snapped her a quick look. "No. He is too old for you. God, Nora, you're looking for a man. Not a father figure."
"Okay," she said, with a little shrug that caused the rounded neckline of her T-shirt to slide off her left shoulder. Mike's gaze locked on that patch of creamy skin and he wondered if it felt as smooth as it looked. He fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her to find out. "So who'd you have in mind?"
He racked his brain, trying to come up with somebody he hadn't already dismissed. And just when he figured he was going to come up dry, a name occurred to him. "Seth," he blurted, grateful for the inspiration. "Seth Thomas."
Nora frowned thoughtfully. "The deputy?"
"Why not?" Mike countered, forcing himself to push the idea. "He's new in town. Probably doesn't know too many people yet."
She looked at him, and for one long moment, he lost himself in those blue eyes of hers. But then he remembered that Nora wasn't for him. He reminded himself that the last two weeks didn't mean squat. She'd been coming out here to have him help her find someone else. The fact that he'd gotten used to having her around meant nothing. The fact that she and Emily had become the best of friends – well, that did worry him. Sooner or later, Nora would stop hanging around out here so much – and for the sake of his sanity, it had better be sooner – and then Emily would be hurt, missing her friend.
But just think, he told himself, how much worse she'd be hurt if she thought she had a shot at getting a brand-new mother only to be let down.
Nope. Better this way. Better for everyone. Especially for Seth Thomas, the lucky bastard.
"You know what?" Nora said after a long minute or two of strained silence. "You're right. Seth is new in town. Who better for me to try my 'wiles' on?"
She stepped back from the fence, an unreadable expression on her face. But all Mike could see were her eyes. Eyes that suddenly looked huge and innocent and … disappointed?
"Nora…" Mike started, but a second later he was interrupted, and it was just as well, since he didn't know what the hell he'd been about to say.
"Nora!" Emily's high, thin voice floated out of the house, and a half second later, the girl herself came sprinting into the yard.
Nora broke eye contact with Mike and turned to look at the little girl eagerly racing toward her. "What is it, sweetie?"
"I finished my picture," Emily called out, nearly breathless with excitement. She skidded to a stop beside Nora, grabbed her hand and started tugging the woman toward the house. "You hafta see. I made it for you. Special."
"Well, I can't wait to see it, then," Nora told her, and scooped the child up to prop her on one hip. Gently, she smoothed the child's fly-away blond hair back from her face. Then, without looking back at him, Nora lifted one hand in a salute. "See you around, Mike. This is girl stuff."
"Yeah, Daddy." Emily repeated with a smile, watching him from over Nora's shoulder. "Girl stuff."
He took a step after them, then stopped himself. His gaze locked on the two of them, and for a second he felt like the outsider here. Nora and his daughter had somehow become a "team" in the last couple of weeks. They were drawing a circle of warmth around each other and it was all Mike could do to keep from stepping into the center of it.
And before he could forget all of his hard-won lessons, he turned his back on the house and walked, alone, to the cold, dark barn.
*
The bakery was busy.
Both of Nora's part-time employees were racing around, filling orders, pouring coffee and making change. Outside, morning sunlight lit up Main Street
like a spotlight. On the sidewalks, people were hustling through their shopping chores and stopping to chat with old friends.
But, at Nora's, there was no time for chatting. And she was grateful. As long as she kept busy, she didn't have to think about last night.
Stupid, she told herself, and sliced up another steaming pan of lemon rolls. She made quick, deft cuts, moving on instinct, as her brain rattled noisily in her head.
"Pulling my chain?"
"Not yet. Want me to?"
Oh, God. She'd made an idiot of herself.
Why in heaven's name was she even trying to flirt with Mike? She wasn't supposed to be developing "feelings" for Mike Fallon. He was just the means to an end. Her little helper. An elf in Santa's workshop, for goodness' sake.
She stopped slicing for a second and in that blink of time saw again Mike's reaction to her teasing. If she'd been blind, she would still have seen the Go Away sign in his eyes. And what had she done? Kept talking, that's what. Tell him he had lousy taste in wives. "Good going, Nora. That was thoughtful."
Grumbling, she finished slicing the lemon rolls, set the knife down and reached for a spatula. "You're an idiot, Nora," she muttered, then shifted to one side and used the spatula to scoop up the rolls and set them on a paper-doily-covered platter.
"Terry," she called. When a short teenager with freckles poked her head around the door, she said, "Here're the rolls."
"Good," the girl said, stepping into the room to take the tray. "The natives are getting restless."
"Ooh," Molly said as she, too, stepped into the kitchen, "then I'd better grab one of those before the slavering hordes get them all." She plucked a lemon roll off the top of the plate and grinned as Terry disappeared back into the main room.
"Hi," Nora said, then looked for the stroller Molly usually had with her. "Where's the baby?"
"With Donna Dixon, out front. She wanted to see the baby and I wanted to see you." Licking icing off her fingers. Molly walked across the kitchen, leaned one hip on the counter and stared at her best friend. "So, Jeff tells me that you've got a date with the new deputy tonight."
Nora dusted her hands with flour, then plunged both fists into a mound of dough that had been set aside to rise. Kneading always worked out her tensions and today she needed the outlet more than usual. Seth Thomas. The guy Mike had thrown at her like a bone tossed to a guard dog to distract the animal long enough so you could escape. Ah, yes. So romantic.
"News travels fast."
"Could have been faster," Molly pointed out, then took a bite of lemon roll. "I mean, I would have thought my very best friend would tell me herself when she's got a hot date. But noooo … I have to hear it from my husband."
"Jeff's got a big mouth."
"Yeah, I know. One of the reasons I love him. Can't keep a secret, so I find out everything." She walked around the kitchen island, grabbed a coffee mug and poured herself a cup. "Except, of course, why said best friend didn't call me."
Nora winced. True. She'd been letting a lot of things slide the last couple of weeks. Her business. Her friends. Her family. All to spend time with a man who so clearly wasn't interested in her. Idiot. "Sorry." She said lamely. "I meant to call, but I've been busy and—"
"Yeah," Molly interrupted around another bite of lemon roll, "busy hanging out at Mike Fallon's place."
"There's that news bulletin again," Nora muttered. Honestly, it was impossible to keep things quiet in Tesoro. Everyone knew everyone else's business and felt justified in spreading that knowledge everywhere they went. But then, she'd been spending so much time at Mike's place, it was a wonder her mother hadn't had wedding invitations printed up.
"Just what's been going on out there, anyway?" Molly asked. Then she gasped as an idea struck and she nearly choked on a piece of pastry. After the resulting coughing fit ended, she asked breathlessly, "You didn't – you haven't – not with Mike Fallon?"
"No." Nora's denial was flat and too disgusted to be taken for a lie. "I'm still in the ranks of the 'virgins-this-old-shouldbe-shot category.'"
"Oh." She took a sip of coffee. "Well, that's disappointing."
Nora stopped kneading, pulled one fist out of the glutinous mass and punched it. "You're disappointed?"
Molly laughed. "Hey
, I'm an old married woman. I have to live vicariously through somebody."
"Well, you won't find much excitement through me, believe me."
Molly walked closer, still clutching her coffee cup and roll. "Nora, what's going on? Is there something you're not telling me?"
Nora stalled. Tipping the huge mound of dough on its side, she twisted and pulled and dug her fingers in, squeezing for all she was worth. She wasn't about to admit, even to Molly, that she was getting hung up on a man she knew darn well was a dead end. Heck, she didn't want to admit that to herself.
"There is something."
Before she could surrender to the inquisition and blurt out the truth, a high-pitched wail rose up from the front room. Cocking her head, Nora grinned. "That sounds like Tracy."
"Yep. I'd better go rescue Donna Dixon. Have to take the baby over to Jeff's mom's this morning, anyway." She headed for the swinging door, but before she left, she turned and looked back over her shoulder. "But I still want to know what's going on with you. And I want to hear about tonight's date. So call me, okay?"
As her friend left, Nora nodded. "I'll be sure to tell you everything. As soon as I figure it out myself."
*
Mike wandered through the darkened house trying not to think about what Nora was doing. Or who she was doing it with.
With Emily asleep and the house so quiet it was driving him nuts, he had no distractions to keep his mind from drifting straight to the one woman it shouldn't be drifting to. She would be out on her date with the deputy by now, he thought, stopping in front of the wide front windows.
He looked past his reflection in the glass to the darkness beyond and the images his brain insisted on creating. With no trouble at all, he saw her, in that little black dress she'd worn to the wedding. The one that clung to her every curve and made a man's mouth water at the thought of peeling it off her body. He imagined it clearly, seeing the deputy leaning across a dinner table, smiling into Nora's eyes. He saw him stroke her hand with a lingering touch. He watched as Nora smiled at a man who wasn't him and felt his insides tighten into a knot he thought might choke him.
Virgin.
She was a lamb being tossed to the wolves.
What if the deputy got as grabby as Bill Hammond had the night of the wedding? What if Nora said no and the guy didn't listen? What if she needed Mike's help and he was all the way out here, on the ranch?
"That settles it," he muttered, and marched to the telephone on a table beside a sofa. As he hit speed dial and waited for the call to connect, he noticed the small vase of flowers and traced the tip of one finger along a fragile petal.
Flowers.
That was Nora's doing.
In the last two weeks, he'd noticed little changes in his house. She brought fresh flowers and dotted the place with them in vases and jars and drinking glasses. She'd bought a few throw pillows to soften the lines of the old leather sofas in the great room. She'd hung curtains and rearranged framed pictures on the wall. She'd brought hair ribbons for Emily and had lately taken to making dinner for the three of them. Her touch was everywhere. She permeated the house. There was no escaping her, even when she wasn't here. Her perfume lingered in the air and taunted his dreams. Her memory danced in his brain and he heard the echoes of her laughter playing over and over again in his mind.
His hand tightened on the receiver when someone picked up the other end and said, "Hello?"
"Rick, it's me," Mike ground out tightly. "Can you come over here and sit with Emily for a while? I've gotta make a run to town."
*
Seth Thomas was a perfectly nice man.
Cute, too.
So why was it, Nora wondered halfway through their date, that there were no bells ringing in her mind? No slow sizzle in her blood? No pitch and swirl in the pit of her stomach? She sat across the table from him and listened with half an ear as he told her about the sheriff's academy training program. She nodded in all the right places and gave him an encouraging smile, but the truth of the matter was, she was so not interested. Okay, maybe she wasn't looking to marry Seth. But was a little excitement too much to ask?
What she really wanted to do was go home, put her jammies on and watch an old movie.
Or better yet, go to Mike's house, take her jammies off and – she put the mental brakes on that train of thought.
"So," Seth was saying, "when Jeff offered me this job in Tesoro, I grabbed it." He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Because I think the secret to good law enforcement is…"
She tuned him out again and wondered what Mike was doing right at the moment. Did he miss her? Was he wondering how the date was going?
*
An hour later, Mike was sitting in his truck outside Nora's house. His gaze locked on the front window, he saw two people through the haze of the curtains. Blurred images, but enough to tell him that Nora had invited her date inside.
Mike's fingers curled around the steering wheel and squeezed. He should have stayed home. He had no business sitting out here watching her like some damn stalker or something. Nora meant nothing to him. Hell, he'd practically forced her into this date with the new deputy. So he had no one to blame but himself.
But who was talking about blame, here?
Not him.
He was fine.
Just fine.
And firing up the engine, he peeled away from the curb and drove home.
Alone.
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
"But he's so cute," Molly said, staring up at Nora as though her best friend was nuts.
"And boring," Nora said with a sigh as she slumped down onto Molly's burgundy-colored sofa. Just thinking about her date last night made her tired. Not that he was a bad guy, but even if it was just about sex then she'd like to go out with a guy who had the ability to heat her blood with a single look. And that wasn't Deputy Thomas. "All night, all he did was tell me about the academy. How he won the fitness medal and that he was top of his sharpshooter class, about how to handcuff a person—"
"Really? Hmm…"
Nora laughed. "Cut it out."
"Just thinking out loud," Molly told her.
"The point is, there was just no…"
"Spark?"
"Exactly," Nora sighed.
"And suddenly you're requiring sparks. I guess I'm not a one night stand kind of woman."
"Well, duh."
Nora shifted uneasily on the couch and let her gaze slide around the room. Cozy, comfortable, Molly's house was cluttered, lived-in. There were fingerprints on the windows, books stacked on tables and a layer of dust on just about everything. Martha Stewart, she wasn't. But as she told anyone who'd listen, she'd have plenty of time to clean house, but her daughter would only be a baby for a little while.
The absolutely perfect Tracy, six months old and growing like … well, okay, a weed, crawled across the toy-strewn floor, gurgling and muttering to herself. Nora's gaze locked on the little sweetheart and her insides ached. The way things were going, she might never have her own children. And the thought of that just made her heartsick.
"Hello?" Molly prompted. "You were saying…"
She glanced at her friend. "I was saying that your daughter gets more gorgeous every day."
Molly practically beamed. "She does, doesn't she?"
But she wasn't distracted for long. Molly had a streak of pit bull in her. "So have you got a spark-worthy someone in mind?"
"Sort of."
"And would this sort of guy be a handsome rancher with a five-year-old daughter?"
Nora's gaze snapped to her friend. "What're you, psychic?"
"Oh, yeah, just call me Molly the Magnificent." Laughing, he propped her feet up on the coffee table. "Honestly, Nora, you've been spending nearly every waking minute with the man for the last two weeks. Who the heck else would it be?"
"For sanity's sake?" Nora countered. "Just about anyone else."
"Mike'
s a nice guy."
"Oh, he's terrific. He just looks at me and sees Typhoid Mary."
"Okay, this tendency to exaggerate is getting a little out of hand."
"I'm not," Nora said, remembering just how fast Mike had tossed Seth Thomas at her. "He does everything he can to keep me at arm's length."
Molly sat forward and grinned. "If you're at arm's length, honey, he can still reach you."
"Easy for you to say. Jeff melts into a puddle whenever he looks at you."
"Honey, up the temperature and every man will eventually dissolve."
Nora laughed at the thought, though, even as she did, she remembered flashes of heat dazzling Mike's eyes when he looked at her. She recalled standing close beside him and feeling his tension mount until he would stomp off to go somewhere … anywhere, else. Nora smiled to herself and wondered. If she could make him hot enough … maybe even Mike could melt.
*
The afternoon sun baked the earth and seemed to simmer on Mike's bare back. Heat rippled through him, fueling the fires within that had been raging since the night before. He never should have gone into town. Never should have driven past Nora's place. Never should have tortured himself by imagining her with the deputy.
Because, all night long, his mind had taunted him, drawing up image after image of Nora being kissed and held and touched by someone who wasn't him. His grip tightened on the hammer in his right fist. He slammed it against a nail head with enough strength to push it right through the fence plank and out the other side. His right arm sang with the contact, and for one brief second, it took his mind off what he shouldn't be thinking about, anyway.
Small consolation.
When he heard a car pull into the drive, something in the pit of his stomach skittered at the familiar sound of the engine. Mike turned slowly, warily, as if he turned too quickly, that car might disappear. Then he'd be in real trouble. When your imaginings took on solid shape and sound, it was "rubber room" time.
The car door opened and Nora climbed out. Sunlight danced on the edges of her hair, making the carelessly tousled mass shine like gold. She looked right at him, as if her gaze had been magnetically drawn to his. Even from across the distance separating them, Mike felt the solid punch of those blue eyes hit him hard and leave him breathless.
KISS ME, COWBOY Page 6
