His chest tightened. Powerful women were his favorite in bed. She was definitely a hard worker.
He clenched his teeth. And, wasn’t that what he wanted? He wasn’t here to flirt with a beautiful boss. He was here to work, period. With plans he'd striven years to implement, nothing could get in his way.
But that didn't stop him from looking. He guessed she was about five-ten. She kept sun-streaked brown hair pulled at her nape in a simple pony tail under that well-used Stetson. Strong cheek bones tapered to a full, kiss-me kind of mouth. His gaze stuck there, imagining what he could do with those lips.
Lee sat down on an upended bucket, and Jesse realized that she'd already been talking about the job and, dammit, he hadn't been listening. Taking a deep breath, he tuned in.
She said, "Since I've been alone here for the last year, things have really gotten out of hand."
Wait, what?
"Money's tight, so I haven't been able to hire anyone. But, recently, I sold 200 acres of one of my pastures for a real good price. I'm hiring you to help me, at least for a while, and I'll make some improvements around here, too."
Why was she working all alone? That couldn't be right. This place looked too good.
"I'd like to put in a pond and replace some old deer blinds, and I want to add three new cabins for my hunters."
He nodded. "Sounds good. Now, who's building those cabins? That's quite a project."
"Yeah, I've spoken with a contractor, and his bid's reasonable. My hand won't be responsible for that." She tipped her hat back and peered at Jesse. "Tell me, can you run a dozer and a tractor? I've got a dozer for the ponds and the roads and two John Deere tractors—a 4440 and an old 4850."
He smiled. "I grew up on a John Deere. I've worked a dozer before, too."
She nodded. "Have you ever put in a pond, start to finish?"
"Yeah, it's been a long time, but it's not something you forget."
"You work cattle much?"
"I can do anything that needs doing around cattle."
They talked pay, and she assured him they didn't work Sundays.
She said, "So, what do you think, Jesse? Is this something you feel you can take on?"
He stared at the dirt on the barn floor and took off his hat, turning it around in his hands. Finally, looking up at her, he said, "Yes ma'am, I can work here for a while. When I find my own place, I'll let you know before I have to go."
Lee stood and shoved her hand at him. "Can you start tomorrow?"
Shaking her hand firmly, he said, "I've got something to do first. How about I see you around nine?"
LEE DROVE UP THE DRIVE toward the ranch house. She'd cook herself a real dinner tonight. Nothing fancy, but if she didn't start eating better, Cheri would have her ass. There needed to be some respectable dishes in the sink when Cheri showed up to clean house.
In the mud room, Lee levered off her boots and stripped down, throwing her dirty clothes in the washer.
After a bath, she poured a glass of wine and stood in front of her picture window, taking in the sight of her flowers. She always felt close to Wess at times like this. Other than wild flowers in the spring, there wasn't much color in North Texas, and she loved seeing the bright hues when she got home. Wess said he was never as tired after he saw her pretties. Wess ... she leaned her forehead against the glass, closed her eyes, and breathed slowly in and out for a while, easing the pain. Most days were good days now. Sometimes, like today, the loss of her husband and daughter haunted her. Turning away, she wandered back to the kitchen to start on dinner.
She sipped her wine and let her mind slip back to her meeting with Jesse. He'd looked so tall and strong when he stepped out of his truck. Everything about him was right. How he wore his clothes. The casual way he held himself and the easy confidence in the way he walked and talked.
Clenching her teeth, she took a large swallow of wine. He would be her ranch hand. Period. Lord, you'd think she never ran into men around here or something. She pushed Jesse Kincaid and his—whatever—looks out of her mind.
Clapton played while she cooked. Oh, how she loved that man. They shared a misery—they'd both lost children. She never heard his music without remembering that.
After dinner, she turned on the TV to the end of a comedian's monologue. The news came on, and she watched the weather—same old, same old—no rain anywhere.
She clicked it off again and let Chowser out for the last time. When she was ready for bed, she called Chowser's white, furry butt back in, and locked all the doors. She was turning over a new leaf. No more falling asleep on the couch. She would begin her night in the bedroom tonight and every night from now on. It had been a year since her loss. Time to deal.
Inhaling deeply, she pivoted to face the hallway, taking one step, then another, and another, and made it to her bedroom door, Chowser following behind. Pushing it open, she swallowed, looking at the bed. Dammit. Coming in here was so much easier to do bleary-eyed and half-asleep at three in the morning.
Chowser waited patiently at the foot of the bed. Never falling asleep before his mistress, he sensed her distress as danger. Placing himself between her and the door, he guarded her with his life.
She walked over to her side of the bed and sat down. And sat. And sat. Then she pulled back the covers and lay down, staring at the ceiling. Okay. This sucked. She turned the lamp off and plunged the room into darkness. That was better. She couldn't see Wess's side of the bed. She realized she'd been holding her breath and exhaled. In this room with its exquisitely lovely and inhumanly cruel memories, she must somehow fall asleep.
JESSE OPENED HIS EYES the next morning, looking at the faded girlie posters on the bedroom wall. He still thought Pamela Anderson was the hottest woman ever born. Funny how this room hadn't changed since his high school days. His double bed with its wild-horse-themed bedspread, the small homework desk, and shelves of calf roping trophies were all still in the same places.
He yawned, running his hand up his bare chest and scratching his cheek, his morning whiskers making a scritchy sound. Lee had said she'd been on her own for a year, and honestly, it'd been hard for him to believe. The barn was in order, the stock well cared for, and the yard maintained. How the hell had a single woman accomplished that?
Lee was something else and sexy in those Wranglers. Her rocking-hot body was every guy's dream. He bit his lip. Maybe he had dreamt about it. Anyway, she didn't seem to be a woman who knew how beautiful she was. She came off as an all-work and no-play kind of gal.
He headed down to the kitchen to put on some coffee.
He'd been home almost a month but had mostly been fixing stuff up around his folks’ place. In a recent phone call to his brothers, they'd agreed to sell the ranch and set up a trust to care for their mother. He also talked to his mom about setting up a trust in her will to care for Terri. He'd see that the funds were used for her and the kids and not for that no-good drunk bastard she married.
Pouring a cup of coffee, he sat at the table and looked in the Yellow Pages in the little local phone book under real estate agents. Western Ranch Properties sounded good. He dialed the number and spoke for a while with an agent. After confirming that she could handle both the sale of the old homestead and help him look for a place of his own, he set a meeting for Sunday morning.
He'd driven into Graham the night before and stocked up on groceries for the week. Now he needed to grab some horse feed before work. Ten minutes later, he was out the door to feed the horses before heading into town.
A little while later, he pulled in front of Bentwood Agricultural Products and backed up to the loading dock. He'd gotten a load of feed in Gorman a few weeks ago, so this was his first trip to the AP in a hell of a long time.
Stepping out of his truck, he couldn't believe this place hadn't changed from when he was in high school. The same kind of ratty messages covered the windows, and the bench out front on the high concrete porch was still there.
Cow bells on the door cla
nged as he came in. The familiar smells of the AP surrounded him—leather, feed, cigarette smoke, and coffee. And the old derelict sitting on the stool behind the cluttered counter sure looked like Bill.
The oldster asked, "Jesse, is that you, boy?" The guy was still sharp. Bentwood had never boasted a newspaper. They'd never needed one. With Bill around, news spread like wildfire.
"Hey, Bill, how you doing, man? You look great."
"Oh, shit, boy, quit yer lying. I don't look great, and we both know it. But I'm still here, and that's better 'n some my age can say."
Jesse laughed. "You're damn straight on that."
"I was that sorry to hear about your daddy. He was a good man. A real good man. Always honest. Always fair. Nobody could say better."
"Thank you. We all still miss him."
Bill, an intrusive old fart, asked, "Well, so how's that roping thing of yours working out?"
"I retired, Bill. I'm looking to buy my own place now."
"So, did you do any good?"
Jesse sighed. "I'd say I did pretty well. I went to the finals every year, and came in second twice. Never came up with the big prize, though."
Bill stared hard at him. "Did you ever get hitched again after that Linda ran around on ya?"
Jesse shifted his feet, looking toward the door, hoping someone, anyone, would walk in and take Bill's attention away. "Nope. Never had time, and besides, what kind of a woman wants a man who's on the road most of the year?" In truth, Jesse had made connections with women but had never found one he felt serious about.
Bill said, "Uh-huh. Well, I'm sure that'll change now that you're home to stay. Say, I know a couple of girls that are looking for a nice fella—"
"No thanks!" Jesse yelped. "I kind of have my hands full right now. I just took on a job over to Lee Granger's place. I'll be too tired to tangle with anything after that."
Bill stared hard at him. "Uh-huh, I'll bet you will."
Jesse flinched. "I'd like ten bags of Horse and Mule, please."
Bill wrote him up a ticket, and Jesse walked out into the crowded loading dock, which was filled with thousands of bags of feed and supplement. Lord, how had he forgotten what a conversation with Bill was like? Similar to getting raked with a buzz saw. He handed his ticket to the dock boy and waited for him to load his feed.
When the last bag was loaded, Jesse hopped down and got back into his truck, waving his thanks. Turning down the side street, he headed out toward the Granger place.
Chapter Three
LEE DROVE DOWN TO THE barn and scanned the heifer pen. One was definitely in labor. That shot hell out of the day. She was putting out fresh hay and cubes when she heard Jesse's truck drive up.
"Hey, Lee."
She shook his hand. "Good morning. A couple of my young ladies changed my mind about what we're doing today. At least one's in labor, and I need to move them into the stalls. We'll have to stick around here close and see how they do."
"Sure thing."
She walked inside, aware he was watching her and feeling the need to cover her ass. Picking up two long, stiff stock whips, she turned to Jesse. "They won't be hard to spot. One has her tail kinked up and the other is walking like she has a belly ache. I'm going to open the gate on the back side of the barn. We'll separate them out and run them each into a stall."
He nodded and headed to the back of the pen where the heifers had gathered. They bobbed their heads and shifted restlessly.
To keep from spooking the cattle, Jesse called softly, "I'll cut out the first one and head her toward the barn. You take the other." He held his whip out ahead of him and moved quietly in among them. The one he was after and another heifer separated from the herd.
As she crossed the pen, Lee couldn't help noticing Jesse's beautiful body. It was taut, muscular and strong.
The cattle edged over to the side fence while Lee went in and targeted the other heifer. Moving slowly, she turned the heifer in the right direction with soft taps of the whip and quiet shoosh sounds. Easing the three forward, Jesse separated the extra one. They drove them through the gate, and walked them into the two open stalls.
Lee high-fived Jesse, a rush of heady sensation passing through her as his hand met hers. She said, "We make a pretty good team, partner."
He smiled at her.
It sent another ripple through her chest. She turned away, and Wess's face was before her. Her heart sank.
She kept her back to him, needing a second to sort her feelings, then said, "Since we're stuck in the area, I guess we'll feed the pastures around here close.
"Anything you say, boss lady."
She realized they had a problem when she saw Chowser trotting over. Her shotgun man just had his seat taken. She called, "Come on boy, up in the back," and opened the tailgate. If eyes were arrows, she'd be skewered. He jumped in and turned his butt to her.
Backing over to the silo where she stored her bags of feed, they loaded enough on for three pastures.
When she climbed in the truck, Jesse had just settled in, so she drove down the dirt drive toward the cattle guard. Why was she so aware of him? Grimacing, she shook her head.
To keep her mind on business, she said, "The first pasture is where I keep my heifers. That damn bull, I call him Mad Dog, is a handful. Don't turn your back on him. He doesn't like you messing with his girls. He's a pig about his feed, or I'm not sure what I'd do."
They didn't drive into the pasture since the concrete troughs were near the gate. She yelled, "Hey! Hooee!" and after she honked the horn several times, the herd came at a trot.
Lee sliced her legs over the wire gate with a bag of feed on her shoulder and turned back to Jesse. "How about getting that stock whip with another bag and stepping over?"
He followed her.
She said, "Just watch my back. That black bastard will knock me down in a heartbeat."
She arrived at the troughs just before the cattle got there. After pulling the string to open the bags, she stepped up on the first feeder, pouring out cubes. Mad Dog slammed his way in, knocking a couple of his girls to the side, and started munching on the cubes, giving Lee the cold eye.
Jesse stood next to her position in the trough, then stepped between her and Mad Dog as she jumped down and backed toward the gate with the remaining half-full bag. Slipping over the fence, she waited for Jesse until his long legs sliced over the wire and into the drive.
Raising her hand for another electric high five, she said, "Nice! Man, it was great feeding without that big bastard breathing down my neck."
They fed the 183 pasture where the bull had broken through the fence the day before, then headed to the last pasture on 283. Jesse got out and sauntered his sexy, Wrangler-clad hips over to open the gate and then closed it again after she drove in. A breeze had come up, and it blew his delicious, soapy, slightly-sweaty scent her way when he sat back in the truck. A flutter of excitement hit her. Unbelievable that he still smelled that clean.
As she headed into the pasture, she said, "I have twenty-six head in here. This is a mixed bunch, but I put a good Angus bull on them. The bull's easy to work with, too."
Jesse stared out the window, his gaze roving right to left.
"There are a lot of funky-looking cows that drop nice looking calves, thanks to my bull." After calling the cattle up and throwing out some feed, she turned back toward the gate. Jesse handled it again. She couldn't help herself, she sniffed, hoping to get a whiff of that wonderful man-smell.
He caught her as he climbed in. "What?"
Dammit! "It's Chowser. He's pissed about you, you know. You took his spot. He's used to riding shotgun."
Jesse grinned. "No. He and I need to be buddies. Any idea how to get on his good side?"
She snorted. "You find out, you let me know. That little shit rules the roost around here. If he wore boots, I'd be licking them."
The first thing they did when they got back was check on the heifers. There were several places where the one with the kin
ky tail had been laying down. And, as they watched, she laid down again, with one tiny hoof poking out of her distended vagina.
Lee turned to Jesse. "I guess you've pulled a calf before, huh?"
"Yes, ma'am,"
"Yeah, but a heifer? You know they can be difficult births."
"I can handle it."
She heaved a frustrated breath. "Well, we'd better get started. Let me find the chains and drag out the calf puller. Just hope to God we don't have to use the damn thing. You mind getting that bucket and filling it with fresh water?" She walked over to the wall and took down her rope, hoping she could make the heifer stand back up.
Jesse stood in the churned-up pen with the water when she got there. Leaning the puller against the fence, she uncoiled the rope and made a loop. She tossed it over the heifer's head, stepping up and winding it into a makeshift halter as the heifer stood up and fought her.
Lee slipped the rope around a post, gradually pulling it tighter, drawing the heifer closer to the fence. The little momma maaawed and shook her head.
Lee said, "I know, baby. This is a mess. Just let us help you, and it'll all be over." She tied her with an easy-release knot. Grabbing the calving chains, she approached the heifer's butt.
"You want me to do that?" Jesse asked.
Why the hell not? Pulling a calf was hard work. "Sure, cowboy. Be my guest."
He smiled and unbuttoned his shirt.
As it came off, she took a deep breath. Oh, man, this guy was built. With a tingling reaction in places she didn't want to name, she watched him lay his shirt over the fence. The heifer gave Lee the hairy eyeball—the soon-to-be momma was not happy.
Jesse moved in close and gently inserted his right hand next to the little hoof. The heifer lurched to the side, dragging him with her, and maaawed again. He murmured to her as he worked deep inside her to turn the calf's other leg around and bring it forward.
Lee stood mesmerized by his beautiful, half-naked body and his gentle competence. The soft light in the shade of the barn's overhang played across his handsome face. Those brown eyes were intent on the heifer. Lee felt attracted to him in a way she hadn't been since her Wess. Jesse's body pulled at her, but more than that, it was his gentleness, the intensity of his attention on this heifer in pain, and his easy assurance in handling the critical situation. Jesse had stepped into her life, fitting perfectly, and it scared her.
True-Blue Texas Cowboy Page 2
