A Taste of Heaven (10 page)

“Oh, yeah . . . there it
is,” he said. It was a fierce slash across the first bend is her
little finger and it looked fairly deep, but the bleeding had
dwindled to an ooze. Tyler's forehead was furrowed in concentration
as he looked at the cut. But despite her anxiety, she saw something
else in his eyes she couldn't readily identify. She thought he
looked like he'd remembered something he didn't want to.

He rinsed their hands again, then took her
other hand to press her thumb to the wound. “Hold it tight, just
like this, and come back to my office.”

Libby followed the ring of his spurs without
question, partly because she'd learned quickly that Tyler Hollins
was not the kind of man who appreciated being questioned. But more
than any other reason, she went along because he appeared to know
what he was doing.

He filled the office door, frame when he
passed through it—she thought that his head cleared the opening by
little more than a few inches, and his shoulders nearly touched the
Sides. Given his cold personality, she hated to admit it, even to
herself, but there was no getting around it as a man, his
appearance definitely commanded attention, and belied that
coldness. His red-brown hair was heavy and thick, with fine coppery
streaks running through it that shone in the firelight. His tall,
lean-muscled frame cast long shadows across the wooden floor.

“Have a seat over there,” he said, and
pointed to a pine armchair next to the fireplace. Everything about
him, even the way he moved, suggested a man who was capable,
invulnerable, always in control. He went to one of the
glass-fronted cabinets in the corner and brought out gauze,
scissors, and a dark bottle, leaving the doors ajar.

Libby perched on the edge of the chair. From
this angle, she couldn't help but notice the way his close-fitting
jeans hugged his legs and slim backside.

Her finger was beginning to throb now. She
caught sight of her apron and realized that it, too, was streaked
with blood. Between the two of them, they looked like they'd been
engaged in mortal combat. With all the trouble she'd put him to,
she felt compelled to apologize before he had a chance to scold
her. “I'm not usually so clumsy. If you give me the bandage, I can
handle this. I don't want to keep you from your supper.”

He waved off her concern and dragged his
swivel chair next to her. “I'll get it in a minute. Besides, I know
from experience that it isn't easy to bind your own hand. All
right, let go.” He put her hand, palm up, across his knee and
pulled her thumb away from her finger. Blood pooled in the cut
again, but much more slowly.

He cut off a length of gauze and folded it
into a pad. Then holding it under her finger, he picked up the
bottle and poured a bit of its contents over it. “This is going to
sting a bit.”

Libby gasped. Reflex made her pull back her
hand, but Tyler kept his grip on her wrist. “Sting! It burns like
fire. And it smells like it could strip paint,” she said, her jaw
clenched. “What is that?”

A huff of laughter escaped him, and he
actually smiled. She had another glimpse of the younger face she'd
seen earlier today when he was talking to Callie Michaels. The
mouth that was sometimes pressed into a stern line softened. His
teeth were very white, and she noticed that the lower ones were
crowded and overlapped slightly. The imperfection made him seem a
little less formidable. He leaned closer and blew on her finger to
relieve the burn. “Sorry. It’s an antisep—uh, something to keep
this from festering.”

He measured off another length of gauze, and
taking her hand into his own, he began wrapping her cut. She
watched his hands as he worked. He had good hands, she
thought—strong, with long fingers. Inside, across the top of his
palm, she'd felt the slight calluses that she supposed came with
managing reins and horses and whatever other kind of work he did on
this ranch.

She continued to consider him. The
October-leaves color of his hair fascinated her, and its texture
looked soft and thick. What would it feel like, she wondered, if
she were to comb it with her fingers?

Apparently feeling her gaze, he looked up
from the bandage, and snared her with his blue eyes. The fire
reflected concern in their depths. “What's the matter, too tight?”
he asked, nodding toward her finger.

With his face tipped up to hers like that,
she had trouble remembering what he'd asked. “N-no, it's fine.”
Heavens, she'd been staring at him. And wondering what his hair
felt like!

After an endless moment, he dragged his
attention to the gauze. “Does it hurt much?”

“No, no really, it doesn't,” she lied. Libby
had the feeling that this man would not tolerate any other
answer.

“I’d think that a kitchen expert like you
would know better than to grab the sharp side of a knife.” Another
thin smile dashed across his features.

It might have been a criticism, but the brief
grin softened his remark. Yes, she did know better, but she'd been
thinking about other things when he barged into the kitchen. About
the past, about her conversation with Callie Michaels, about the
shawl. She ducked her head ruefully.

“I guess I let my mind wander. I tend to
daydream when I wash dishes, but it usually doesn't get me into
trouble.”

“What were you thinking about?” He kept his
attention on his task, but his voice had acquired an interested
tone, as though he really wanted to know.

She tried to keep the longing out of her
words. “Oh, Chicago mostly.”

“Montana's a little different, isn't it,” he
said.

“A little! More than a little—I mean—” Libby
didn't want to insult the man's home territory, but in her view,
his remark was an understatement. “Um, have you been to
Chicago?”

“Yeah, but it was years ago. There are big
stockyards there, you know. And beef packing plants.”

“I know, but I never had any reason to go see
them.”

Tyler looked up again and considered her for
a moment. “Ben must have made it sound pretty appealing out here to
make you want to leave your hometown and come all this way to get
married.”

Libby tensed slightly. “I believe that Ben
Ross exaggerated a lot of the things he told me.”

He shrugged. “Well, try not to hold it
against him,” he said, and reached for the scissors. “The West is
full of old cowhands like him, lifelong bachelors who came up from
Texas in the early days after the war. Most of them don't have a
lot of experience courting women.”

“You seem to be pretty experienced
at
this
,” she said, twitching
her little finger to indicate his skill. She felt easier with him.
His manner was almost friendly. She turned to regard the rows of
bottles and jars on the cabinet shelves, and ventured a smile
herself. “And what a collection of medicines. I'll bet you give the
doctor in Heavenly some competition.”

Tyler looked up sharply. He snipped the end
of the bandage into two strips and tied them in a knot, then put
her hand back in her own lap.

“A lot of things can happen on a ranch,” he
said, suddenly taut and withdrawn again. Standing, he walked to the
cabinet and put away the supplies. Then he pointedly closed the
doors, making it clear that its contents were none of her business.
His watch chain gleamed dully in the firelight, and half of his
face was eclipsed by shadow. “If a horse goes lame or one of the
crew falls into a barbed wire fence—or if the cook cuts herself—we
have to be able to handle it.”

Effectively shut out, Libby wondered what on
earth had turned the tide of the conversation so quickly, so
completely. She felt that she'd overstepped the bounds of propriety
with her employer, but couldn't imagine how. Feeling awkward now,
she rose from the chair, smoothed her apron and held her
white-wrapped finger gingerly. “Yes, well, thank you for your help.
I kept some stew and apple crisp warm for you. I'll get your plate
ready.”

He shook his head and extended his arm toward
the door to usher her out. “I'll take care of it. You should
probably go and rest. This has been a long day for you.” His,
expression wasn't angry. In fact, it was carefully blank. “And you
have to keep that bandage dry.”

Libby wasn't used to working for
someone so determined to do for himself. But he was right—it
had
been a long day, and if he
wanted to get his own supper, she wasn't about to argue with him.
She could clean up the sink in the morning.

“I'll say good night, then.”

“Good night, Mrs. Ross.”

Feeling dismissed, she inclined her head and
turned to leave the room. She heard the office door close behind
her.

Upstairs in her room, Libby shrugged out of
her clothes and into a flannel nightgown. Maybe something had
happened to Tyler that had hardened him into the man she saw most
of the time, the man who lived behind a wall of coldness. One
moment he seemed pleasant, the next he was as icy and remote as the
hills on the other side of the valley. She'd think that he truly
disliked her, yet he'd bought her that shawl today. It lay across
the foot of her bed, and she reached out to smooth its soft wool
fringe. And she couldn't have mistaken the concern she'd seen in
his face while he bandaged her finger.

Bah, he was probably worried that her wound
would hamper her ability to cook, she thought sourly. And anyway,
she was too tired to unravel Tyler Hollins's perplexing
behavior.

She opened her door a crack to let in the
warmth from the hall. Heat generated by the fireplace drifted
straight up here and in her mind, it was a shame to waste it.
Climbing between the cold sheets, she turned down the lamp next to
the bed, and the room was plunged into darkness. She huddled under
the blankets, shivering and waiting for her body heat to make a
warm pocket. Then she remembered the shawl. She sat up and whipped
it from the end of the bed.

As she sank into the feather mattress,
despite the throbbing in her finger, sleep crept in to claim her
and she told herself that none of it mattered. Not the cold nights,
not her cold employer. This job was only a means to an end—an
escape from the frontier.

*~*~*

Tyler stood on the edge of the front porch
and looked at the clearing night sky. Illuminated silver-gray by a
half-moon, clouds drifted easterly across the faces of the stars.
At least it had stopped raining. Breaking horses, the job he'd be
doing tomorrow, was hard work any day. Doing it in the rain was
hell.

But it was nearly midnight, and he couldn't
sleep. He'd headed upstairs earlier, planning to go to bed, but
almost immediately came down again. He'd no sooner gotten his
clothes off than he pulled them back on and went downstairs in his
stocking feet.

In the past few years Tyler had carefully
established the ordered routine of his life. He usually rose before
the crew was up, he worked hard all day, either on the range or in
his office, he ate his meals in the dining room. Sometimes he sat
in the parlor in the evening, reading stockman's journals, or even
less frequently, one of the textbooks from the closet under the
stairs. Then he'd go to bed and begin the pattern all over again.
The only ripples that fluttered across the even surface of this
schedule were his Saturday night trips into Heavenly. He protected
this routine by making certain that nothing and no one trespassed
on his solitude.

Now it had been completely disrupted by the
honey-haired young widow asleep in the room next to his. Upstairs,
he'd been nearly as aware of her over there as if no wall existed
between them. He'd slouched on the leather sofa in the parlor for
hours, staring at the fire, feeling like an outsider in his own
home.

Leaning over, he rested his forearms on the
porch railing and sighed. In the low yellow lamplight gleaming
through the window, he saw his breath as a cloud of vapor. It
wasn't that she was a pest, or incompetent, or lazy, he pondered.
Hell, even after she'd cut herself, she was ready to go back to the
kitchen. And he knew she'd lied about the pain in her hand. He'd
seen grown men holler louder over less serious injuries.

Sitting next to her in his office, he'd
detected the faint, sweet fragrance of flowers and vanilla. It was
innocently feminine, the kind of scent that Callie, with her
bright, hard perfume, had made him forget. The loss of that memory
had been a blessing.

He'd forced himself to keep his eyes on her
hand, but a couple of times he found his gaze straying to her
softly rounded bosom. For a small woman she was surprisingly
lush-breasted, and her tiny waist and the simple high-necked white
blouse she'd worn only enhanced her shape. Her skin, he remembered,
was the color of fresh cream with rose petals floating on it.

He suspected that Libby's life hadn't been an
easy one for all that she'd worked for a wealthy family in a big
house. He'd think that wouldn't be as hard on a woman as life on
the prairie. But she had a look to her gray eyes that reminded him
of heartache. That nagged at his conscience.

He hadn't meant to snap at her when she'd
made the comment about competing with the doctor in Heavenly. She
couldn't know how he felt about doctors, or the medical profession
in general—

He straightened away from the railing and
stretched his spine. His morning was coming up fast—it would be
here in just over four hours and he couldn't spend the rest of the
night sitting on the parlor sofa. He had to get some sleep.

Turning, he padded back into the house and
picked up a lighted candle to see his way up the stairs again. But
when he reached the second floor, he realized that Libby Ross's
door was ajar. He hadn't noticed it earlier when he'd charged out
of his room and down to the parlor.