MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA

by Eileen Wilks

  At last he pulled his head back. "I'll make it right," he said hoarsely. "Tell me what you want, and I'll make it right. Just don't get greedy, sweetheart. I can make it worth your while, but most of my money's tied up in the ranch."

  Money? Between one breath and the next, Hannah's head cleared. He was bent over her, his mouth wet from hers and his hand hot on her breast, and he was talking about money?

  Pure, feminine fury powered the fist she swung at his head. She would probably have broken her knuckles if she'd connected, as hard as his head was, but he sat up suddenly. Really suddenly.

  Her fist landed on his elbow instead.

  "Ow!" she cried, and hit him again, this blow landing on the solid muscles of his biceps. "Ow, damn you, damn you, you think I want money for kissing you? You think you can pay me to have sex with you?" She pulled her fist back for another swing, but he scrambled to his feet and stood there, looking down at her with dark, wary eyes.

  Oh, she wanted to hurt him. She really, really wanted to hurt him, but instead she'd hurt herself. Her knuckles throbbed. She pushed to her feet. Her tunic hung open, unzipped to her waist. Embarrassment flooded her, and the humiliation of knowing she'd made herself vulnerable to a man who thought so little of her only made her more angry. Her hands were shaking as she tried to get the zipper up. "You think all nurses are whores, or is it just me?"

  "I was wrong," he said stiffly.

  Was that supposed to be an apology? "Get out," she said, not caring that it was his own kitchen she was ordering him out of.

  His mouth looked as hard as ever, his features just as unrevealing, but there was a hint of color on his high cheekbones, color that could be from anger or embarrassment or both. He bent to pick his hat up off the floor, then straightened, his hat in his hands. "I'm sorry."

  She wanted him to grovel. "Sorry doesn't cover enough territory. I tried to stop you."

  "I was wrong. I said it and I know it's true, but you're the one who kissed me. Are you forgetting that part? Maybe I jumped to some conclusions, but when a woman comes on to a man the way you did, he's apt to make some assumptions about her."

  She stood tall because pride demanded it. "You don't think any woman is fool enough to kiss you unless you pay her for it?"

  "I prefer women who are honest enough to get me to pay for what I want up front, with cash, to the ones who make me pay later, in other ways." He settled his hat on his head. "Get your things together," he said curtly. "I'll have one of the hands take you into town after lunch. You've still got your ticket back to Lubbock, and I'll throw in a couple days' pay."

  He was firing her. Oh, Lord, he was firing her, and he had cause, from his point of view. She had kissed him. However badly he'd behaved after that, she was the one who'd stepped out of line first. And she ought to be glad to get out of here, away from him—except that she still had only thirty-four dollars in her wallet, and her sister was still missing. She couldn't afford to go.

  Hannah chewed on her bottom lip and searched frantically for possibilities. There had to be some way to get him to let her stay.

  He slapped his hat on his head and started for the door—and stopped, shook his head and turned around. "I'd appreciate it if you could stay a little longer, though. Until I can get someone else in."

  * * *

  The horse stamped one foot and shifted, crowding the man grooming him. It was time for oats, and the big gelding knew it.

  Nate shoved the animal's flank hard enough to make him back off. "Soon," he said, running the brush along Ajax's belly. "You've got to get rubbed down before I put you up, and you know it. But you don't think much of my priorities, do you?"

  Ajax craned his head around as far as the lead would allow, looking at Nate in apparent agreement.

  Man and horse were in the alley between the stalls, directly beneath one of the overhead lights. Trixie had flopped down near the open door. She was panting, having followed Nate and Ajax all the way to the north field and back.

  Outside, the sky was two shades of dark past—twilight, yet not quite night. Dusk often dragged its feet in the winter, wrapping the world in ever-darker shades of gray. At least, that's how it was here on the plains. Nate used to go skiing in the mountains of New Mexico, back in the days when the world was a golden place. He knew night could hit suddenly in some places.

  Abe emerged from the tack room. "You about finished there, boss?"

  "Pretty near." The gradual graying of day into night was the way things usually worked, he thought as he drew the brush across Ajax's speckled shoulder. Most of a man's life was made up of such slow turnings, without clear markers to separate one from the other.

  But sometimes the darkness really did fall all at once.

  "I guess I'll go get some supper, then." Abe said that, but he didn't seem in any hurry. He stood on the other side of Ajax, feet planted like a man who intended to stay and talk.

  "You do that. I think Julio fixed chili tonight."

  Abe nodded thoughtfully. "Julio does okay with chili. I don't know what all he puts in it, but it don't matter. Can't taste anything but them peppers anyway. You plannin' on joining the boys in the bunkhouse for supper?"

  Nate grunted noncommittally.

  "Just wondered, seeing as how you've got that pretty nurse up at the house cookin' for you and Mark. 'Course, maybe you were wanting to give the two of them some time alone."

  Nate gave his old friend a warning look. "I'll go up to the house when I'm ready."

  "It's six o'clock."

  "I know what time it is."

  "A man might get the notion you were avoiding someone."

  "Leave it alone, Abe."

  "I don't see no reason to—well, now." His weathered face folded into a broad smile as he looked toward the door of the stable. "Looks like you'll get your supper hot after all."

  Nate looked over Ajax's broad back and saw Hannah standing in the doorway. Madly curling wisps escaped from her braid to form a frizzy halo around her face. She wore an old blue parka over her nurse's whites, and held a plate wrapped in aluminum foil in one hand, a glass of iced tea in the other.

  Trixie had risen to her feet and was wagging her tail madly, delighted that her new friend had come calling. "I'd pet you if I could, sweetheart," the woman said to the dog, "but my hands are full."

  Nate's mouth thinned. Another woman might have looked sexless in that uniform and bulky parka. Hannah looked like sin wrapped up in white and tucked into a faded blue shopping bag.

  "Somethin' sure smells good," Abe said, giving her his best harmless-old-man smile. "Any chance that's for me?"

  She shook her head and returned his smile. "I'm afraid not. Not unless Mr. Jones—"

  "Nate," he interrupted, irritated.

  "Not unless Nate decides he doesn't want it."

  "Pity," Abe said, glancing at Nate. "Boy, you going to introduce me?"

  Nate ran the brush over Ajax's withers. "Hannah McBride, this is Abe Larimer. He used to be my foreman, but I just fired him."

  Hannah looked startled.

  Abe grinned that sly grin of his. "Fired me last month, too. Don't do him much good. I've been here longer than he has, and I ain't leaving."

  Her smile was bright enough to warm half the stable. "Me, neither. I'll bet we have some acquaintances in common, Mr. Larimer. My father has cowboyed from the Big Bend country here in Texas all the way up to the sweetgrass country in Montana, and for a lot of years my sister and I traveled with him."

  "Shoot, no one calls me mister around here," Abe said, and fidgeted himself closer to that smile. "I guess you know something about horses, then."

  "A thing or two," she agreed. "It's been a long time since I've been riding, though." Her gaze slid over to where Nate stood, brush in hand, on the other side of the big gelding. "That's a handsome animal."

  His body reacted as if she'd just referred to him that way. "Ajax? He's a good horse, but he's an ugly brute."

  "Where did he get a name like Ajax,
anyway?"

  "Oh, Nate here is real fond of them old Greeks they make you study in school," Abe said.

  "Myths?" She looked intrigued.

  Nate ignored that. "What are you doing here, anyway? I hired you to take care of my brother, not me."

  "Mark needs time to himself now and then. I left him with his supper and the VCR remote. He's watching one of those action movies where someone gets shot every five minutes." She started toward him.

  Damn, but that woman knew how to move, as smooth as Eve must have moved in on Adam after she had her little talk with the snake. Trixie frisked along beside her, no doubt entranced by the smells coming from that plate. And it did smell good. A lot better than Julio's battery-acid chili.

  She reached across Ajax's back, holding out the glass of tea. Automatically he took it. "I wouldn't call this fellow pretty," she said. "Not with that big Roman nose of his, and his coloring is…"

  "Flea-bitten?" he supplied dryly. "Muddy?"

  "Well, yes… But he's a strong, handsome fellow. Aren't you, big guy?" Her voice dropped to a croon as she reached out to stroke the horse's neck.

  Ajax, ever curious and ever ready to eat, turned his head and tried to lip the plate she held. She laughed and held it away from him, and her eyes met Nate's.

  She had a husky, pleased-with-herself laugh, Hannah did—a laugh that all but reached out and stroked a man. But there were nerves in her eyes. Everything else about her spoke of sex and confidence, of a woman who understood the power she could wield over a man. Not her eyes—they belonged to a kid who has been double-dared and refuses to back down.

  It was those risky, uncertain eyes that finished him.

  * * *

  Hannah held her ground in spite of the way her boss was looking at her, tight-lipped and hot-eyed. If her own heart pounded, he couldn't know that. He had no way of knowing that she had spent the entire afternoon talking to herself—lecturing, really—so she'd have her head on straight when she saw him next. She tipped her chin up another notch. No, he couldn't tell a thing by looking at her.

  His voice was dry, giving nothing away. "Which of us did you come out here to feed, me or the horse?"

  "You." She was in control, she assured herself. No problem. "At least, I hope your horse doesn't like meatloaf."

  "Meatloaf," Abe said wistfully. "With tomato stuff on top? And mashed potatoes?"

  Hannah nodded. "And corn bread and green beans."

  "Corn bread." Abe sounded like a lost soul gazing through heaven's gates. "And would those be fresh green beans?"

  "Frozen, I'm afraid. I'll have to make a run into town before I have any fresh vegetables. You like corn bread?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Mark had told her about the man who cooked for the hands. Julio was great with beef, it seemed. He could grill a steak or hamburger to perfection, and his barbecued ribs were out of this world. But beef was all he wanted to bother with. Everything else he fixed came out of a can.

  "Call me Hannah," she said to the old man. "I'm glad to hear you like corn bread. I sent an extra pan of it down to the bunkhouse when I found out Julio was fixing chili."

  Abe's eyes lit up. "I am damn glad to meet you, Hannah. Damn glad. But I gotta be going now. Won't be none of that corn bread left if I don't hurry." He kept talking as he headed for the door. "It's a good thing you've come to take this boy and his brother in hand. They need a woman around the house."

  "Abe," Nate said warningly.

  "I'm going, I'm going." But he paused at the door, the mirth in his eyes escaping from his mouth in a series of quick, dry chuckles. "Heh! Heh! Heh! We'll have to talk, Hannah. I can tell you a thing or two about Nate here—"

  Nate looked ready to do murder. "Abe!"

  "I'm gone." And this time he actually did leave, chuckling at the rate of one dry heh! per step.

  "He's quite a character," Hannah said.

  "He practices." Nate started brushing his horse again.

  Was he trying to pretend that she wasn't there? Irritated, she gestured with the plate she held. "Your supper's getting cold. Maybe you'd rather have the chili, though."

  "No," he said. "I'm almost finished. Set it down on the chair by that empty stall, and I'll get to it as soon as I pick out his hooves."

  She held the plate across Ajax's broad back. "Go on, take it. I'll tend to your horse."

  "I didn't hire—"

  She interrupted impatiently. "You didn't hire me to take care of your horse. Or you. I know. But I hate to see food get cold, and I like horses. I wouldn't mind getting acquainted with this one while you eat." And after he ate, they could talk. Get a couple of things straight. She was not really worried about that, she assured herself. Maybe a tiny bit tense, but not what anyone would call worried.

  He shook his head, but his mouth turned up in a reluctant smile. "Bossy as hell, aren't you?"

  "Yep." She liked his smile. It eased the tightness around his eyes and mouth. It made his bent eyebrow perk up and look more at home on that rugged face. "Now go wash up."

  He set the plate and glass on a straight-back wooden chair that sat next to an empty stall, dug into his back pocket and held out the hoof pick. When she reached out to take it from him, their fingertips brushed. She had the sudden, absurd impulse to drop the pick and grab his hand.

  His expression was dark and forbidding. He didn't look as though he ever had any impulses at all.

  No, she didn't have anything to worry about, she thought as she watched him head for the sink at the end of the aisle. Maybe he did funny things to her breathing. Maybe she liked his smile a little too much. But she wasn't going to do anything about those feelings, and that was what counted. All too often, Hannah had ended up learning her lessons the hard way, but the upside to that flaw was that once she learned something, the lesson was there for good. Never again would she mistake the fizzy rush of hormones for anything important or lasting.

  She was perfectly safe. And it didn't matter one bit if she never learned whether his bent eyebrow felt different from the straight one.

  * * *

  Nate left his plate and glass on the only chair in the building, an old cane-bottom chair that had been around the place for years. Flakes of paint still clung to the wood, but the paint was so weathered that it had no more color than the wood did. For some reason he thought about that chair and its flaking paint as he headed for the back of the stable, where a closet-size room held a sink and a toilet.

  Several months before she died, Nate's mother had bought that chair and three others to replace the ones at the kitchen table. She'd asked Nate and Mark to paint them, and she'd handed them a bucket of paint in her favorite color. Powder blue, she'd called it. He and Mark had thought it was a sissy color, but they'd taken the chairs out behind the barn and put three coats of that soft, pale blue on each of her chairs. Three coats, so it would last.

  Mark had done a good job, too, for all that the kid had only been seven years old. Even then, though, he'd taken pleasure in what he could do with his hands. He'd probably taken extra care because he had wanted to do a good job for the woman who'd been a mother to him—even if she hadn't given him birth. DanaRae Jones had had a way of finding the loving places in people, even people who didn't seem to have much love, like Nate's father. Garwood Jones hadn't been much of a husband. Mark's existence proved that much. But whatever love he'd had in him to give, he'd given to his DanaRae. Nate hadn't understood that until he saw what his mother's death did to his father.

  Sixteen years was a long time. In spite of the care he and Mark had taken with their work, in spite of those three coats of powder blue paint, all that remained were some flakes and strips of paint the color of pale ashes clinging to a single chair.

  What had happened to the other three chairs? Nate couldn't remember. He dried his hands and tried to think of what he'd done with them, but he just couldn't recall, and it bothered him. It bothered him more than it should have. What did the fate of three worn-out chairs matte
r?

  Yet he was still trying to remember when he returned to where Hannah was grooming Ajax.

  Trixie, fickle female that she was, was ignoring Hannah now. She sat by the cane-bottom chair and watched Nate with hopeful doggy eyes as he picked up the plate and sat down.

  "Something wrong?" Hannah asked. She stood next to the horse and leaned her knee into his right hind leg in a practiced motion. Ajax shifted, taking his weight off that leg, and she bent and picked up the hoof.

  "No." He took the foil off and the mingled smells of meatloaf and corn bread hit him right in the salivary glands. She'd piled the plate nice and high. His stomach growled. "You're getting your uniform dirty."

  "It'll wash." She ran the metal pick into the crevices between the hoof and the horseshoe. "I've missed this." She sounded surprised.

  "Picking hooves?" he asked dryly, and started on the meatloaf.

  "Horses. I've missed being around them. It's been…" Her voice drifted off. She straightened and ran a hand along Ajax's side. "Though God knows why. Such big, stupid, stubborn creatures you all are, aren't you, darling?" The gelding responded by nudging her with his nose. She laughed.

  God, that laugh of hers! Heat prickled his skin as he turned his attention to another physical need. He picked up the big, square piece of corn bread she'd balanced on top of the potatoes, took a bite and closed his eyes. Ahh. Fresh, hot and slathered with butter.

  "Getting to you, aren't I?"

  He opened his eyes. "Is that why you came down here? So you could impress me with your cooking?"

  "Partly." She moved and picked up the next hoof, but she didn't explain further. For the next several minutes, he ate, she worked … and he watched her.

  She moved with a casual efficiency that was its own sort of grace. The stark fluorescent light overhead should have drained the color from her, but she was a true redhead. Harsh lighting might rob her complexion of its pink tones, but it left her skin milky-pale and stunning. Her hair looked darker than it had in the daytime, and richly red.