The men chuckled at that.
“It’s a nasty business,” Tim, a shy young man, jumped in, his face burning red, obviously seeing where his mentor Chuck was heading.
“I see.” Jessie folded her arms across her chest, sensing the groundwork being laid for a bargaining session. “Well, of course I’m taking your word for the distastefulness of chicken plucking, but I could probably see clear to working something out.”
Chuck let out the breath he’d been holding. She wondered if he hated killing chickens as much as she did. “There’s no need to work anything more out. Jeremy and Slim will kill the birds and Tim and I will clean them.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jeremy piped in, his eyes lingering on Jessie’s breasts long enough to make her uncomfortable. “I’ve got to be out at the South range with that irrigation pipe pretty quick anyhow.”
“Then it’s settled?” Jessie asked, shifting away from Jeremy’s line of view.
“It’s settled.”
“Then I’ll head back up to the house and get started on those cakes. Just be careful you leave Mac J. Jr. be.”
“Jr.? You’re naming a chicken after the boss?”
She shrugged, stroking the bird’s back. “There’s something about the way she strutted so arrogantly up to her death that made me think of the boss.”
The men stared at the cocky, ruffled chicken for a second before breaking out in huge guffaws of laughter. Jessie knew it wouldn’t be an hour before word got back to her boss a chicken had been named after him.
Halfway back to the house, she heard pandemonium break out in the chicken coop. Looking back, she began to swear viciously. That son-of-a- bitch Mac hadn’t bothered to tell her that square little pen on the side of the cage was some sort of chicken catcher. She watched as Slim tossed some corn in the little chicken wire box and the second chicken strolled right on in to be efficiently caught as the trap door dropped.
Jessie looked at her bruise-pecked hands, smelled the chicken droppings on her clothing, and saw red. Mac Hollister was going to pay, and pay big for withholding that little bit of advice, she decided as she threw open the back door and headed for the shower.
* * * * *
Mac entered the house and his nose twitched. Chicken and rice. Damn, he thought as he stepped into the shower. He couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it. He called to mind her small, sick face and slammed his hand down on the faucet control in the shower.
“There’s no way she killed those birds,” he stated aloud ten minutes later as he tried to force clean jeans to slide up his still damp legs.
“She was turning green at the thought,” he told his reflection as he combed back his damp hair. He grabbed his blue shirt out of the closet—the one that exactly matched his eyes—and tucked it into his jeans. His thoughts in turmoil, not sure whether he was mad or glad that Jessie wouldn’t be leaving in the morning, he went down the back stairs into the eating area. There, along the table, were four fragrant skillets. Of the cook, there was no sign.
His suspicions rose when ten perfectly innocent faces lifted at his entrance and cheerfully greeted him. Something was going on here.
“Jessie?”
Will pointed with a fork toward the kitchen.
He found her whipping cream into a topping. She turned toward him, her brow creased in inquiry.
There it was again, Mac thought. That perfectly bland expression that fairly shrieked trouble. “Did you go into town today?”
Jessie raised her eyebrows. “How could I?” she asked. “You neglected to leave me the keys to the station wagon.” Both knew the neglecting had been deliberate.
“You know,” he stated conversationally, snagging a chair from the small desk. He turned it around and straddled it backward. “Ever since I came back today, everyone I’ve met has been giving me that same perfectly innocent expression you are wearing right now.”
She turned the hand mixer on high. “That’s a problem?”
“Honey, I haven’t seen an innocent face in this crew since three years ago when Will substituted a rodeo bronc for the cutting horse I was supposed to be riding.”
“I fail to see where that has anything to do with me.”
He folded his arms across the back of the chair. From the other room the sound of hearty appetites being appeased could be heard. “Now, how did I know you were going to say that?”
“You’re psychic?” she hazarded a guess over her shoulder.
He picked up his chair and moved it so he could see her face. “I don’t suspect that’s the case.”
Jessie added a touch of vanilla and sugar to the topping she was making. She paused expectantly, her face all bland inquiry as she waited for him to continue.
“Where did the chickens come from?”
She pointed out the window with the measuring spoon.
He followed the trajectory of the spoon and saw the chicken coop, now closed up for the night.
“I noticed the old girl you were dangling out on the stump this morning pecking around the yard when I got in.”
A drop of whipped cream attached itself to Jessie’s finger. She slowly sucked it off.
Mac couldn’t pull his eyes from the sight. “It won’t do you much good to try and distract me,” he warned, his cock hardening. He’d love to have those lips wrapped around his shaft, sucking slow and hard until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Now, what happened after I left?”
She shrugged. She turned the mixer back on. “There was something so mindlessly cocky about the little critter, I decided to spare her.”
“I take it that’s now Mac J. Jr.?”
“You heard about that, huh?”
“Probably about two minutes after you dubbed her.” He fought the urge to smile. It was such a feminine way to get revenge. “What’s the J stand for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because all the bets aren’t in yet.”
“Who’s the oddsmaker?”
“Will.”
“I’ll have to look him up.”
“Why don’t you do that right now?” she suggested helpfully.
He shook his head slowly, a smile tugging at his lips. Damn he enjoyed sparring with her. “Where did the chickens come from?”
“I told you where.”
“No, you didn’t,” he corrected. “You merely referred to the chicken coop.”
“Chuck mentioned you had a penchant for dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s.”
“Comes from living with a sly father and a lazy brother. If you weren’t quick enough to spot a loophole, you tended to end up doing all the dirty work.”
She dropped the beaters into the sink. Mac rescued one, and scooped the cream off with a fingertip.
“Is this where I’m supposed to sigh in sympathy over your abused childhood?” Jessie asked.
Mac licked his finger clean. Her eyes followed every move of his tongue around his finger.
“Nope,” he said. The way she swallowed in conjunction with him brought a smile to his lips, and prompted him to reach for another finger full. He’d never had a woman so aware of him. It was both arousing and fun. “I learned fast.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised.”
“I haven’t forgotten the subject.”
She unplugged the mixer and put it away. “What subject?”
He twirled the clean beater in his hand. “I thought that might be your game.”
She managed to appear affronted. “I don’t play games.”
“Like hell.” He got up and put the beater in the sink. “Where did you get the chickens, honey?”
“Oh, that subject. I thought we’d already settled that.” She walked around him and opened the fridge and pulled out the chocolate tortes with their chocolate leaf decorations.
Mac’s taste buds leapt to life. He struggled to remember the conversation. Suddenly it didn’t seem all that important when faced with a confirmed chocoholic’s d
ream. “Not quite.”
“I got the chickens from the chicken coop here on your ranch. The one you can see through that window to your left.”
He didn’t bother to look out the window. He searched her face for the truth. No matter how hard he looked, he saw no sign of deceit, but damn it, he knew there was no way she had wielded that hatchet and lopped off those critters’ heads.
Jessie just kept on looking innocent. She picked up the first of the cakes. From the diminished sounds out in the dining room, supper was winding down. “Excuse me.”
Mac realized he was blocking the door. He got up and returned the chair to the desk. When she passed through the door, he was right on her heels, and not only because she was carrying that dream of a cake, though he would have followed that to hell and back. Something was going on here, and he wanted to know exactly what.
All sound stopped as Jessie entered through the door carrying that cake. Chuck clasped his chest and pretended to faint. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Jute reached for the cake as she drew near. “Let me help you with that, gorgeous.”
Jessie skirted his hands. Slim kicked him in the shins. “That’s not for the likes of you.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
Mac shot Jute a glare. “Watch your language.”
Jute in turn, glared at Jessie as if the reprimand were all her fault. Jessie placed the cake in front of Chuck.
“Here’s my part of the bargain.”
“Looks like I got the better part of this deal,” he responded, rubbing his hands in glee.
Jessie grinned and shook her head, sucking a smear of chocolate off the side of her hand. “I think that totally depends on your point of view.”
“What about ours?” Slim, Tim, and Jeremy piped up as one.
Mac smelled a rat.
Jessie pointed toward the kitchen. Chairs clattered as three sets of boots made a beeline for their prizes.
The seven remaining men at the table began to smell the same rat, Mac noted. “I suppose the rest of us are just going to have to do without?”
Jessie rubbed her palms up and down her thighs, and chewed her lower lip before admitting honestly. “You’re going to have to do without the chocolate cake, but I make a mean peach cobbler.”
Everyone came to the same conclusion at the same time, but Will was the one who spoke up. “What did those four do to deserve that?” He pointed to the chocolate confection that Chuck was zealously cutting into. He appeared ready to commit murder.
Jessie studiously avoided Mac’s gaze. “They were kind enough to help me out with a messy chore.”
Chuck took the first bite of the cake. His expression melted into sublime bliss. When he opened his eyes, his gaze bounced off Mac’s angry one before meeting her expectant one. “I think you can call us even.”
“Good.”
Her smile was genuine, lighting her eyes as well as her face. It hit Mac like a sucker punch, stealing his breath and his ability to even think for all of two seconds. When the feeling returned to his body, it all focused in his aching groin. A glance around the table told him he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed how Jessie’s smiles took her from sweet to siren. To a man, he wanted to shove their faces in their plates.
He pulled out his chair and sat down, adjusting his jeans as he did so, wincing as the material bit into his aching cock. He grabbed the half-empty skillet nearest his place at the head of the table. Someone had been kind enough to leave him some rice. He scooped it onto his plate, ladling the gravy mixture over the top.
“Looks like I’ll be looking for another cook come morning.”
Dead silence greeted the announcement. Slim paused in the swinging door that connected kitchen to eating area, his fork halfway to his mouth. Jessie would have laughed at the expression of utter dismay on his face another time, but right now she was gearing up for battle. Every eye in the room turned to her for comfort. Every eye except Mac’s. His eyes met hers in pure triumph. She folded her arms across her chest.
“The only way you’ll be looking for a new cook tomorrow is over my dead body.”
Mac scooped up a forkful of fragrant rice. “I don’t see where that will be necessary, since you lost the bet.”
“How do you see I lost the bet, Mr. Hollister? You stipulated that the food come from the ranch, and that as cook, it was my place to see the job done. I saw to it.”
Mac gave the food a couple of cursory chews and swallowed. Before the food was halfway to his stomach, he knew it had been a mistake. Fire burned over his tongue, seared his throat, and closed off his windpipe. He grabbed for his glass of water, chugging it as tears poured down his face. It felt like his insides were erupting in flames.
“What are you trying to do, kill me?” he rasped when he could catch his breath.
Jessie raised her eyebrows innocently. “I distinctly heard you tell me you liked your chicken and rice spicy.” She looked around. “Tim, Jeremy, Slim, Chuck? You all heard him, didn’t you?”
The three younger men looked a little hesitant to so obviously go against the boss, but Chuck had no such compunction. “Spicy is what I heard,” he confirmed around a mouthful of cake.
If he’d been capable of clear speech, Mac would have blistered his friends’ ears for turning traitor, but another surge of heat had him grabbing for his water glass. Around him, men laughed and joked. Across from him, Jessie stood looking as if she were wavering between satisfaction and apology. With a few hacking oaths, he pushed back his chair, and bailed.
Jessie watched as Mac bolted from the room and bit her lip. She might have taken her revenge too far.
Chuck started to laugh so hard, Rafe had to slap him on the back to stop him from choking. “What did you put in that batch to do that to him? Mac’s a Texas boy. He’s been breathing fire since the cradle.”
Jessie turned away from the door, smiling at the men. “Ever heard of Sichuan Peppers?”
“No. You put one of those in there?” Rafe asked.
She shook her head. “No. I put about fifty of them in there. I ground them up real fine and stirred them right in. They looked like pepper.”
“Holy sh—I mean cow!” Jeremy swore.
“If that man has a stomach left, it’ll be a miracle,” Slim interjected.
“I know!” she admitted, still chuckling. “But I can’t work up one iota of guilt. I expected him to chew the darn food before he swallowed.”
“I expect he will in the future,” Slim interjected.
“If he still has a stomach to fill after this,” Tim ventured.
“You know he’s going to be hell to live with after this,” Chuck pointed out.
“At least until he gets even,” Slim agreed.
“Which I suspect he’s dwelling on right now,” Jute added, with a lot less mirth than before.
All eyes fell pointedly on Jessie. She threw up her hands. “Hey. I thought you were on my side.”
Chuck shrugged. “We are, but until Mac gets even, he’s going to be tough to deal with.”
“In other words, I can expect no warning from any of you?” She slowly stood up.
“It’s just a matter of self-defense,” Slim apologized.
She halted any more such excuses with an upraised palm. From the determination she could read in every eye, she knew better than to appeal to their stomachs. She narrowed her eyes, and settled her hands on her hips. “Before you all go sending me off to OK corral on my own, do you mind telling me just how that particular skillet got half empty? Especially after I warned everyone away?”
Slim and Chuck looked at each other. Both men shifted uneasily in their chairs. “Well, it would have looked funny if there was a platter of untouched food on the table, so we took some out of that one.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, borrowing one of Mac’s favorite expressions. “I suggest you keep that in mind when you catch wind of his plans for revenge.”
“Now, Jessie,” Chuck interj
ected placatingly. “You wouldn’t tell the boss about that, would you? That wouldn’t be fair.”
She held her hand up in front of her face, curled her fingers down toward her palm, and did an in-depth study of her nails. “I suppose I could be persuaded to keep my mouth shut if you could be persuaded to keep yours open.”
“After the way we helped you this morning,” Slim pointed out reasonably, seeing a way out of the middle of this. “There’s no guarantee the boss will confide anything in either of us.”
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