He heard the rattling of the dishes and glanced over at Chloe, watching her as she cleared the table. His gaze slowly swept over her figure, liking the way the jeans fit across her backside. He figured her height was probably around five-eight and he would bet all the wool his sheep would be producing this year that she had long beautiful legs. The kind that would be a killer pair in a miniskirt.
He shook his head thinking about his fetish for seeing women in short skirts. He was a leg man all the way. So why was seeing this woman in jeans having basically the same effect?
Really it didn’t matter because he planned to let her go as soon as he could get in a replacement. Temptation was temptation and he would hate to suddenly develop sleepwalking tendencies knowing she would be in the guest bedroom down the hall from him.
Hell, such a thought no matter how tempting, didn’t sit well with him, mainly because he made the Double Creek Sheep Ranch one of the most successful in the United States. He’d done so by staying focused on what needed to be done and not by getting caught up in a woman. He didn’t intend to get caught up on one now.
He leaned against the counter, deciding not to interrupt what she was doing just yet. Not when he had her within his scope. Whether he liked it, he was enjoying the view.
* * *
The man was agitated about something, Chloe could sense it, but at the moment she refused to let him get on her last nerve. She had plenty of work to do and didn’t have time for a confrontation. After she was finished clearing the table she would break the news to Mr. Westmoreland that she was not his cook, that she had done him a favor and that she expected one in return.
The room was quiet, but she could hear his breathing, strong and steady. But even though she refused to look over at him, she was well aware he was looking at her, checking her out. And she knew he was paying a lot of attention to her backside, probably had his gaze locked on it real tight, which would account for the heat she actually felt on that part of her anatomy. She’d been told by more than one man that she had a nice derriere, curvy and shapely, just the way a man liked. Whoopie, she thought sarcastically.
But still, she would be the first to admit that just the thought that Ramsey Westmoreland’s gaze was on her bottom almost made her breath catch in her throat. His eyes, whenever she looked into them, were filled with intensity and she could actually feel that intensity now focused directly on her.
Not able to stand it a minute longer, she swung around and frowned deeply. “We can talk now.”
His dark eyes remained steady on her, even when he nodded and said, “All right. First I want to say you did a heck of a job with lunch today. The men were impressed and so was I.”
She blinked. A compliment hadn’t been what she’d been expecting. The man definitely had a way of delivering it with mixed emotions. His words were syrupy and sweet, while the texture of his voice was brooding. “Thank you, I’m glad everyone enjoyed it.”
“They also enjoyed you.” At the lift of her brow he clarified and said, “Enjoyed you being here I mean.”
She wondered where he was about to go with that comment and figured she would know soon enough. “I enjoyed being here as well,” she responded as she placed the dishes in the sink. It was time to come clean and let him know her real purpose for being there. “Mr. Westmoreland, I think that you—”
“Ramsey. I prefer you call me Ramsey. Everyone around here does. Some even call me Ram.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that.
“You find something amusing, Ms. Burton?”
She met his gaze and her smile widened even more. “You can call me Chloe, and what I find amusing is the fact that a ram is a male sheep and you are in the sheep business. Unique, don’t you think?”
He shrugged muscular shoulders. “Never gave it much thought.”
She lifted a brow. “Are you trying to tell me that no one has ever made the connection before?”
“If they did, they knew better than to mention it.”
Chloe wanted to just throw her hands up in the air and give up. It was quite evident that even when they were trying to hold a civil conversation they had the ability to rub each other the wrong way. That made her wonder about him, the man she wanted to be on the cover of Simply Irresistible. He looked better than chocolate cake oozing with deep, rich chocolate icing—her favorite—but it was becoming quite evident he was a complex man. She couldn’t help wonder what made Ramsey tick? What would it take to make him become relaxed, more laid-back? she wondered. Although she could see that around his men he was pretty mild-mannered and friendly. It was obvious they had a good working relationship while maintaining a degree of respect. That meant he was reserving his uptightness mainly for her. She wondered why.
The research she’d done indicated he dated when the mood or the urge probably hit him. Yet he didn’t have any steady woman in his life. His last serious relationship had been with the woman he’d become engaged to, a woman by the name of Danielle McKay. However, she had ruined what was to have been his wedding day by stopping the minister in the middle of the wedding and walking out. That had been over ten years ago. Surely he’d gotten over that incident by now.
In addition to the cover photo for the magazine, she wanted an interview with him and had a feeling getting him to talk would be just as difficult as getting him to agree to the cover photo. Talk about pulling teeth. She had planned to send one of her seasoned reporters to talk to him and now she could clearly see that just wouldn’t work.
Suddenly an idea popped into her head. She might as well go about killing two birds with one stone. She wanted him to do the magazine cover and she wanted an article on him as well. His profession intrigued her. For instance, why had he gotten into sheep ranching versus cattle or horse ranching?
An insider’s view of his operation might be good reading information to her readers. And the best way to find out everything she wanted to know about him was to hang around and get to know him for herself. The man was without a doubt masculine perfection and she wondered if there was more to Ramsey Westmoreland than a handsome face and a hard, muscular body.
Chloe nibbled on her lower lip. Now was the time to come clean and tell him the truth, but something was holding her back from doing so. He owed her for lunch today and she intended to collect, but she wanted more from him than just the photo cover. She wanted to interview him for a piece in the magazine as well. Women loved wool and she could do an article informing them of the entire process of getting it off the sheep and into the stores. At lunch a number of the shearers had explained how things were done, but she wanted to hear it from Ramsey.
“What made you get into sheep ranching?” she decided to ask. There was no sense in wasting time getting the information she needed.
She glanced over at him when he didn’t say anything and felt heat thrum through her body when he shifted his gaze to her face. From his expression she could tell he was surprised by her question.
“Why do you want to know?”
He was a suspicious sort and she would add that to the list of his characteristics. “I’m just curious. You have a big spread and a good number of men to help you run things. Most people around here have cattle or horses, but you have sheep. Why?”
Taking his time, Ramsey pondered Chloe’s question. It was one he had asked himself many times and whenever he did he would always come up with the same answer. “Being a rancher was a dream my father and I shared from the time he took me with him to visit a friend of his in Maryland who owned a sheep farm. I couldn’t have been any more than twelve at the time. In college I majored in agriculture economics, so I would know everything there was to know about farming and ranching, although my plans were to join the family’s real estate business like everyone else. It was Dad’s intent to one day retire and just have a small flock of sheep, but he died before he had a chance to fulfill his dream.”
“I’m sorry, Ramsey.”
She had spoken quietly and he saw hi
s sorrow reflected in her eyes. He quickly wondered why he had shared that with her. He wasn’t sure why he had answered her question at all. What was it about her that had made him feel comfortable enough with her to bare his soul? “Look, Chloe, what I need to talk to you about is—”
At that moment his cell phone went off. “Excuse me,” he said before fishing it out of his back pocket. “Yes?”
She watched, nearly mesmerized as a huge smile touched his face, curving his lips. If she hadn’t seen it, she would not have believed it. Did he reserve his frowns just for her?
“Dillon, when did you get in?” He paused. “No problem, I’m on my way.”
He quickly returned the phone to his jeans pocket and glanced over at her. “I need to run. We still need to talk. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” He turned to move toward the back door.
“I’ll be gone by then.”
He stopped and pivoted around and lifted a questioning brow while staring at her. “Gone where?”
There were those intense eyes again and she drew a breath. “Back to town.”
He leaned back against the counter again. “Did the agency not tell you that I hired you as a live-in cook? The men will be expecting another meal in the morning around five.”
“Five!”
“Yes.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Did your other cook live here?”
“No. But then I didn’t have to worry about her getting here early enough to have breakfast ready for my men. Nellie and her husband have a house less than ten miles away. She arrived every morning at three and left in the late afternoon.”
He then lifted a brow. “Just what did that employment agency tell you? This is shearing time here at the ranch and it happens only once a year. I own over three thousand sheep and have only a two-week window to get the wool off. Unlike a lot of sheep ranchers who hire a sheep shearing crew from year to year, my men are trained to do all the job duties here. That means they will work around the clock. I have to make sure they eat a hearty breakfast and are fed a good lunch. I can’t wake up tomorrow morning and worry about whether you’ll show up.”
“I’ll be back in the morning,” she heard herself say. “I promise.”
Ramsey frowned. Hadn’t he made up his mind that they could not stay under the same roof? Wasn’t it his intent to talk to her about remaining as his cook only until he’d found a replacement? So why was he making a big deal of her staying over tonight? He should be overjoyed that she was leaving.
He inwardly shrugged and figured he only cared because of his concern that she would not be here on time in the morning to feed his men. “I’m going to need you here on time, Chloe,” he said in a voice that sounded pretty damn curt even to his own ears.
“I said I would be here, didn’t I?” she all but snapped back in a tone that said he would get just as good as he gave.
His glare locked on her face and then he nodded stiffly. “I’m taking you at your word. Lock the door behind you when you leave and I’ll see you in the morning.” He then headed for the door.
He turned and met her gaze one more time and she didn’t release her breath until the door had closed behind him.
Three
“Please tell me you’re joking, Clo.”
Chloe sat her luggage down near her feet and turned to Lucia who had a worried look on her face. Chloe had decided to return to Ramsey’s place tonight instead of trying to find her way there again in the early morning when it would still be dark outside. “Come on, Lou, it’s not that serious. I’m doing Ramsey Westmoreland a favor and in the end he will be doing me a favor.”
Lucia rolled her eyes. “He won’t see things that way when he finds out what you’re really about. You’re not only invading his privacy, but you’re also being deceitful.”
“I’m not.”
“You are, too, and all hell is going to break loose when he learns the truth. I live in this town, you don’t. You’ll be back in sunny Florida and I’ll be here feeling the heat of the Westmorelands’ wrath. When it comes to anyone messing with one of them, they all stick together.”
Chloe crossed her arms beneath her breasts and gave her best friend a pointed look. “And which Westmoreland are you concerned with pissing off, Lucia?”
Chloe knew she had hit the jackpot when Lucia dropped her gaze and began looking everywhere but at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chloe had no intentions of believing that. “Yeah, right. You don’t want to make waves with the Westmorelands for a reason, so fess up. Which one is it? Ramsey?”
“No,” Lucia said quickly. “It’s no one.”
Chloe didn’t believe that any more than she believed there was a lost colony off the California coast. “Okay, Lou, this is Clo. You can’t lie straight even on your best days, so I’m going to ask you one more time, who is he and don’t waste my time telling me he’s not a Westmoreland.”
Reluctantly, Lucia met her gaze and then in a quiet and flat voice she said, “It’s Ramsey’s brother, Derringer.”
Chloe raised a brow. Her best friend’s expression was filled with so much love it almost hurt her to look at it. “Derringer Westmoreland? When did all this take place?”
She had known Lucia since her first year of college and the man’s name had never come up, yet judging by the expression on Lucia’s face whatever she felt for the man ran deep and had been there a long time.
A faint smile touched Lucia’s lips. “I’ve loved him forever.”
Chloe was shocked. “Forever? And I’m just hearing about him?”
Lucia shrugged. “There was never a point. My crush began in high school, but he saw me as nothing more than one of his sister’s friends. I thought I’d gotten over him when I left for college but since returning home four years ago I’ve discovered that isn’t the case.”
Lucia’s face warmed when she said, “Last month I ran into him, and for the first time in years we were close enough to speak.” A smile then touched her face. “And he asked me—”
“Out on a date?” Chloe asked excitedly.
“I wish. He dropped by my dad’s paint store and I was working behind the counter and Derringer asked me to hand him a can of paint thinner.”
Chloe couldn’t help the grin that curved her lips. Evidently that little incident had made Lou’s day. Just being around Ramsey Westmoreland put a spark in her day. Now where had that thought come from? Chloe wondered.
“Now that I know how you feel about Derringer Westmoreland, I will tell Ramsey the truth as soon as reasonably possible. I still want to make him feel indebted to me first for a while and then I’ll level with him and come clean.”
Lucia nodded. “I know how much having Ramsey on the cover of your magazine as well as doing that article on him means to you.”
Chloe met Lucia’s gaze and smiled. “Yes, I don’t want you to worry about it because I believe in the end we’ll both get what we want.”
* * *
Ramsey looked up from the breeding charts he had spread over his desk and considered going into the kitchen to eat that last bit of peach cobbler that had been left from lunch. It had been so delicious his mouth was beginning to water just thinking about it.
And his mouth was beginning to water just thinking about something else as well. More specifically, someone else. Chloe Burton. Talk about looking yummy. He threw his pencil down and leaned back in his chair. At that moment he couldn’t help but think about snug-fitting jeans that covered a curvaceous backside and a blouse that fit perfectly over a tempting pair of breasts. He was getting aroused at the memory.
Damn.
Deciding he needed a beer more so than any peach cobbler, he got up to make his way to the kitchen. Moments later he was leaning against the counter and tipping the bottle to his lips and taking a much-needed drink. Lowering the bottle he then glanced around the room and for the first time noticed just how large and quiet his home was. Usually he welcomed the silence, but for some
reason it bothered him tonight.
He studied the ceramic floor as he thought about his great-grandfather, Raphael Westmoreland, who had owned over eighteen hundred acres of land on the outskirts of Denver’s city limits. When each Westmoreland reached the age of twenty-five they were given a one-hundred-acre tract of land. It was why he, his siblings and cousins all lived in close proximity to each other. As the oldest cousin, in addition to receiving his one hundred acres, Dillon had also inherited Shady Tree Ranch, the Westmoreland family home. The huge two-story dwelling sat on three hundred acres and hosted the majority of the family functions. Since Dillon had married Pamela it seemed the Westmorelands had reason to celebrate a lot. Everyone adored Dillon’s wife, found her totally different from his first wife, and had welcomed Pamela and her three sisters into the family with open arms.
He lifted his head when he heard a knock at his door and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was close to eleven, but that didn’t mean a damn thing to any of his siblings or cousins. They felt they had a right to come calling at any time. He shook his head as he made it to the door, thinking it was probably his sister Megan. She was twenty-four years old and an anesthesiologist at the hospital in town.
Without bothering to ask who it was, he slung his front door open to find Chloe Burton standing on his porch and tightly gripping a piece of luggage. He was so surprised to see her that he could only stand and stare.
He could tell by the way she was nibbling on her lower lip that she was nervous, but that wasn’t what held his attention, although the action caused a tightening in his gut. What had him transfixed was her outfit. She had almost ruined a saucy minidress by wearing leggings. He would have loved to see her bare legs and almost sighed in disappointment. But then he had to admit she still looked gorgeous and sexy as hell. Good enough to eat after first lapping her all over. He swallowed knowing at that moment that he was in trouble.
“I know I said I’d come back in the morning, but I figured not to take any chances getting here late. Besides, I need to get things set up, if the men eat at five. I’ll need to be in the kitchen at least by four. So…here I am.”
Brenda Jackson The Westmoreland Series Books 16-20 Page 16
