To Wed a Rancher (4 page)

But, darn it, there was just something about Shane
that made a woman want to…to look at him. Closely. It was disconcerting. She had never been a very physical kind of woman. Lust had not been a part of her life. The fact that she was even having these kinds of thoughts was totally alarming.

So don't look. Get to work,
she ordered herself.
Do something to create some distance.

“So, Mr. Merritt, you have three weeks. What needs to be done during that time?” she asked casually, just as if she hadn't been thinking about what Shane looked like underneath his shirt.

He raised a brow. “Shane,” he said, correcting her once again.”

She nodded. “Got it. Shane.” So much for distance.

“The ranch has been vacant for a while,” he said. “Things have deteriorated. The hay didn't get cut, so that has to be done and then reseeded. At a minimum, fences have to be mended, buildings have to be repaired, irrigation systems checked out, weeds controlled. As I mentioned earlier, the house needs cleaning. The place has to look inviting if I'm going to be able to sell it quickly, and it has to be sold. Once it's in marketable condition, I'll ask you to take a few photos. We'll list it anywhere we can and end with an open house, followed by an auction if we haven't had any offers before then. Basically, we're getting the ranch show ready, not necessarily ranch-ready.”

“The hay is for show?”

“Hay in the field will be more attractive. It's one less thing the new owners will have to worry about when winter comes and they need to feed their animals.”

Rachel nodded. Once the two of them stopped talking, that sense of being alone with Shane in a world
separated from everything else hit her again. “It's so quiet here other than the birds,” she said. “You don't seem to have any animals. No cows or sheep or…whatever else a ranch has. I don't know. Llamas? Bison? Doesn't a ranch have to have animals? Aren't they what make a ranch…a ranch?”

He almost smiled that devastating smile, but—thank goodness—he put it away before she'd even gotten a good look. “Yes, most ranches have animals, but this one is for sale, and no one's been here since…it's been a while.” She didn't miss that slight stumble, or the momentary pain that had flared in his eyes.

“When I inherited the ranch, I wasn't prepared to deal with the situation, so I just let things sit for the most part. Except you can't just let cattle sit unattended. I hired someone to sell them off.”

“All of them?”

“All the cattle, yes. As for the horses…”

“Of course. You had horses, too.”

“I still have them.” He looked a bit sheepish at that. “I wanted to personally handle that bit, so I had them stabled in the next county.”

“Is it nicer in the next county? Better grass or something? I mean…I know I don't know anything about ranching, but…why there when there were all those ranches we passed?”

He shrugged. “You were right. Better grass.”

She could tell he was lying and that he didn't care if she knew it. He obviously had a reason and she, as his employee, wasn't entitled to it. Rachel zipped her lips. She had probably been talking too much, asking too many questions. It was a bad habit she'd developed early in life, the result of having to get to know large groups of people quickly.

Still, as they came over a rise and she saw a building in the distance, she couldn't help asking, “Is that it? The house…or…? I don't know much about ranches. Aren't there sometimes multiple buildings?”

“There are other buildings, but none of this size. Yes, that's the house.” There didn't seem to be an ounce of pride in his voice.

Rachel understood why as they drew closer. She felt she should say something, but she wasn't quite sure what to say without sounding critical. “It's…it's an impressive building,” she tried, which was no lie. In fact, it must have been very impressive at one time. A long, sprawling white building that looked as if it had been added onto multiple times, it dominated the land and looked out onto the mountains. But the paint was barely there, the chimneys were crumbling and there were porch boards that had worn through. A lone shutter clung to the side of one window, dangling at a crooked angle.

Shane stopped the truck, and he and Rachel got out. They walked up to the house and he opened the door, reaching around her. His arm brushed her sleeve, ever so slightly, and it was all she could do not to suck in a deep breath. Just that one little touch had called up such a giant reaction in her. How ridiculous. How unlike her. How unnerving.

Get your act together, Rachel,
she ordered.

“My apologies.” Had the darn man read her thoughts?

“No big deal,” she said, as if his nearness didn't even affect her. “Could you…? If this is going to be my work space, I'd like to see the rest of the house, please.”

“Prepare yourself,” was his response. And when she stepped over the threshold, Rachel understood why.
They took a quick tour, their steps ringing off the wood in the cavernous emptiness of most of the house. Dust and cobwebs lay over everything Shane hadn't already touched. There were no curtains at the windows, and one of the panes was broken. In the rooms that were furnished, Rachel noted that the furniture had probably been old when Shane was a boy. The kitchen appliances might have appeared in old horror movies, and all of the light fixtures looked questionable. Despite the condition of the house, or maybe because of it, Shane was moving quickly and they had soon covered all but one of the rooms. “I just want to fix it enough to sell it,” he said.

“How about this room?” she asked, nodding toward the one room they hadn't gone in.

“Don't worry about that one,” he said. “It was my younger brother Eric's.”

Rachel smiled. “You think he's going to mind if I take a peek?”

Shane trapped her gaze with his own. “No. The ranch belonged to him. Now it's mine.”

And he had apparently inherited it, which meant that his brother was dead.

Rachel wanted to drop her gaze. She didn't. “I'm sorry for your loss.” She didn't say that she was sorry for her light comment. She hadn't known. He hadn't told her.

“I'm sorry, too,” was all he said. “We'll leave that room alone for now.”

But eventually, if he was going to sell the house—and he'd made it clear that he was—even that room would have to be fixed.

“Your call,” she said. “You're the boss.”

“Where that room is concerned…yes.” And she was
only the employee. It would be good to remember that and not ask too many questions or get carried away. In any way. For once in her life she should learn to keep her mouth shut and not go poking at things with sticks. Because it was a good bet that if she poked Shane she might get a reaction she couldn't handle.

“Not going to happen,” she muttered beneath her breath.

“Excuse me?” She looked up to find herself pinned by those awesome, fierce eyes.

“It looks as if there's a lot that needs to be done before you'll want to have an open house, even if you're only going for show ready,” she said. And there was no hiding from the fact that she had zero experience of the types of things he needed doing. Her life had been a lot of moving. There'd never been a home she could call her own, let alone take care of. Her food had mostly been institutional, and when it hadn't been it had still been prepared by someone else.

“Rachel?”

She looked up into Shane's silver-blue eyes and saw…concern. Uh-oh. She'd shown her hand, hadn't she?

“Yes?” The word came out a bit too soft.

She almost thought he swore beneath his breath. He was standing so close she had to look up. She could feel his warmth. His gaze passed over her, and she could barely breathe.

“If you've decided you don't want the job, tell me now.”

Oh, no. Here she'd trusted him and already he was firing her. “I need the job,” she said, hoping she didn't sound too pathetic.

“Fair enough. I'll help with the heavy lifting.”

The thought of having him in close proximity lifting things for her made her palms feel clammy. She felt awkward and fidgety. “I know I'm short, but I'm capable of doing this myself,” she said, but she didn't know who she was trying to convince. Him or herself.

And, since she had punctuated her sentence by swiping a finger across a bit of woodwork in a dramatic swoop, she now had dust all over her fingers. She started to close her hand into a fist so that he wouldn't see what an idiot she'd been, but it was too late. Shane pulled a navy bandana from his pocket, cupped her hand in his own much larger one and gently wiped the dust away.

When he released her, her hand tingled, even though he had barely touched her.

It occurred to her that working with Shane would be a much bigger challenge than how to approach these chores she was so ill prepared for. Still, if she could bulldoze her way through and do the job quickly, if he could sell this place fast, she could get back to civilization and Maine, where there were no dangerous cowboy bosses. She hoped.

“Ever been to Maine?” she asked.

“Your favorite place,” he remarked.

“Yes. And it's also my future, the place I intend to build my dreams.”

He nodded at that. “I wish you luck. I really do, even though I'm not a big believer in dream-building. I'm strictly practical. As for Maine, I've been there, but not in years. No reason to show up there anymore.”

Rachel felt a little pool of relief slip right through her. She would never cross paths with Shane once she left here. Oh, yes. Maine was looking better every minute.

“I
'LL
move everything out of the dining room so you can get started in there in a little bit, but for now let's take care of transportation for you,” Shane said. It was time to move things along. Just dive in and get the preliminaries over so that he and Rachel could start the job in earnest. The sooner they started, the sooner they ended.

“That works for me,” she said.

That seemed like a pretty enthusiastic response, considering how much had happened to her during the last day and given the terrible condition of the house. It had been going downhill ever since his mother had died many years ago, but he just hadn't cared. Now he had to, for several reasons. One of them was standing beside him, looking pale and scared but determined. He was lucky Rachel hadn't run out the door screaming. Many women—or men—would have walked rather than face this disaster.

He was grateful that she hadn't asked him more about Eric's room. He had taken everything that had belonged to his mother and Eric and locked the past away in that room. Sooner or later he'd have to face those memories, but not today. Or tomorrow. Or any day real soon.

“This way to the garage,” he said as she followed him. “So driving stick will be a new experience for you? All right, let's see what we can find that you'll like.”

“I'm not fussy. Dependable is more important than any thing, I'd guess. You have some long, lonely stretches of road.”

“Good point. Dependable it is.” He led her out to a big gray building and pulled open the wide double doors.

For a second there was silence, just the birds and the insects chirping away. “Um…there are ten cars here,” Rachel said.

“I know.”

“That one in the back looks as if it's from another era.”

“It is. It's a Duesenberg. Probably doesn't run very well.”

She gave him a look. “Isn't that some sort of collector's item?”

“For those who collect, yes.”

“And it's sitting there covered in cobwebs?”

“That's about the shape of it.”

Rachel tilted her head, looking at him quizzically. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just…I've known some people with money in my lifetime. Most of them like to flaunt it. If one of them had a Duesenberg they would be bringing it up in conversations, maybe have a print of it hanging somewhere in the house.”

Shane shrugged. The Duesenberg had been his stepfather's pride and joy. Next to the ranch, of course. “I'm not much into collecting cars.” Or ranches.

“Fair enough. What are you into?”

Kissing women with pretty brown eyes that snap when the woman is angry or nervous or that sparkle when the woman is amused.
Stupid thought.

Keep it simple, Merritt,
he reminded himself.
No complications. This woman is the serious type. That makes her off-limits.

“Not a collector at all. I'm more into the working parts.”

She looked suddenly self-conscious. Had he said some thing suggestive? Maybe he had, given how low his voice had dropped. “Of a car, that is. Engines. Systems. How things are engineered. The technical stuff.” He flipped open the hood on the nearest car. “Not exactly looking good here.” And neither were any of the others. “But I think I can get one of these two to run.” He gestured toward the black sedan and the red sports car.

“Black is very practical and so is a sedan,” she said. But somehow he could practically see her dancing on her toes when she looked at the sports car.

“I've always been partial to red myself,” he found himself saying.
Why had he said that? What was that about? He was not a guy who gave a lot of weight to the color of his car, and given the choice of black or red he probably would have chosen black every time.

“I don't know. Red seems flashy. I'm just the housekeeper. I should be practical.”

“Are you always practical?”

As if he'd turned on a switch, she flushed straight down to the roots of those pretty brown tresses. “Not especially. Hardly ever.”

Ah, now he saw. She'd been lectured about it, too, he was pretty sure. He wondered if that guy she'd been with had been the one who'd chided her about her im
practical tendencies. “I'm fairly confident that the red one is in better shape.” He wasn't. Not at all. And why was he doing this?

No clue. Certainly not because he was interested in the woman. That wasn't true. At all. Was it? Maybe it was just because if he thought about Rachel's situation he wouldn't have to think about his own and how being back here was like walking over eggshells filled with bad memories. If he didn't tread lightly, the shells would break and the memories would spill out. Concentrating on Rachel was easier, especially since there was no chance he'd ever get close enough to her to turn her into another bad memory. Yeah, that was probably it.

“Let's get the car running,” he suggested.

In the end he had to make a phone call to Somesville in the next county for a rush delivery of a new battery, some spark plugs and fluids. In spite of the fact that he hadn't looked under the hood of a car since he'd left Moraine, all those years of keeping the engines here running had done the trick and he was sure that there was nothing major wrong with the cars. The biggest problem once he'd started appeared to be Rachel herself.

“Let me help, Shane. This is ridiculous. You're lending me a car, and here I am just standing around being useless. What can I do to help? Show me.”

He looked at her pale blue slacks and white blouse and then at the greasy rag he was holding. “You'll get dirty.”

She got a grim look on her face. “I'm not just some helpless female who fears dirt and spends all her time primping to make people think I look good.” Then she put her hands on her hips and all he could think about
for several seconds was how curvy her hips were and how good she really did look.

“I never said you were like that,” he said, frowning at his own too-male reaction.

For one brief second she looked chagrined. “Sorry. You didn't. It's just that…I've known a few of those women. I…let's just say that it's a pet peeve of mine. And, really, I want to lend a hand. You're my boss. I should help.”

“All right. Let's see what we can find to keep the grease off you.” He began to open the drawers to the storage cabinets looking for some old shop aprons that might still be lying around. The cabinets were disorganized, not quite as bad as the house, but close.

“How about this?” Rachel asked, and he looked up to see that she was holding a pair of coveralls. Eric's old coveralls.

His heart felt as if someone had just punched him straight in the chest. He opened his mouth to tell her no, but Rachel was already shimmying into the royal blue coveralls, sliding them up over the curve of her hips.

All his objections died in his throat. Every cell in his body went on alert. Everything that was male in him stopped and paid attention as the coveralls that were meant for a stick-straight small male conformed to the perfect roundness of Rachel's rear end, the aged and worn soft material causing it to cling to her in places. The right places—no, the wrong places for a man trying to stay aloof…and sane. For several seconds Shane thought he might have stopped breathing.

And then it got worse. She reached back to find the sleeves, and there was no way he couldn't notice the soft curve of her breasts. It didn't matter that the legs of
the coveralls were too long, that she had to roll up the sleeves or that the things barely touched her in places once she was inside them. As she raised the zipper, covering herself, he realized that he hadn't spoken through the whole ordeal…and that he was acting like a man who'd never seen a woman's body before.

Quickly, he ducked under the hood of the car, just barely missing banging his head. “Here,” he said, holding out an oil wrench.

To his surprise, city girl Rachel jumped in with both feet. She slid under the dirty car and asked him to explain the basics of emptying the oil pan and removing the filter. She insisted on helping with the spark plugs and the new battery.

When they were done, he looked down to find her smiling. “You'd think we were doing something exciting,” he mused.

“It was new for me, and I got one-on-one training. People pay big bucks to take classes in this very thing in my world.”

It was the perfect opening to ask a question, find out more about her, discover what her world was like. But he wasn't going there. It was better that he not know too much about her. He needed to keep things impersonal.

“Besides, when I finally make it back to Maine and save enough money to get my own little dream house, maybe with a little clunker car of my own, I might need to know this stuff.”

Another perfect opening. He firmed his mouth into a straight line and refused to ask about her dreams. Instead, he simply nodded.

She didn't seem to notice his silence. “But you,” she said. “I'm amazed at people who can do what you've
just done. You seem to be very good at this,” she said, stepping over that line he had laid down and aiming straight for the personal information.

He frowned. “I've done it a lot.” But not since he'd left the ranch.

“Is this kind of thing part of your business?”

“Changing the oil in cars?”

Perhaps he'd sounded too incredulous, since the result was a pretty blush that crept up Rachel's neck. This time he refused to look at where the blush disappeared into her coveralls. Not that it mattered. His imagination kicked in as he wondered just how far that blush traveled down her body before he managed to order himself to stop.

“I guess the answer is no,” she said. “Ruby said you were very successful. I just thought…you know…do what you love, do what you know…”

“Makes sense,” he agreed. “But I run a consulting firm that teaches companies how to use technology more efficiently.”

“Oh, yes, the mathematical genius thing Ruby talked about.”

“That was always an exaggeration.” And it had often been a criticism. Apparently Rachel agreed with the criticism part. Her brow was furrowed.

“Not into math?” he asked, breaking his own rule about personal questions less than a minute after he'd resolved to steer clear of anything that drew them closer to each other in any way. What was it about Rachel that led a man to forget his own rules?

“It's not my best skill,” she agreed, “but I admire those who know how to tame numbers and make them do what they want them to. I was just…” Her blush grew. “It's nothing.”

“Obviously it's something.”

“Nothing important. I'm just divesting myself of an other stereotype—the nerdy numbers guy who's not good with women. According to Ruby you've got a reputation with the women here and…”

He pinned her with his gaze, raised a brow.

“Right,” she said. “Let's just leave it at that. Not the kind of thing most employees discuss with their bosses, anyway.”

But it was becoming obvious to Shane that Rachel didn't have much in common with most employees. Given his inability to just ignore her, or compartmentalize his reaction to her, he probably shouldn't have hired her, but now that he had…

We move on,
he thought.
Quickly. Very quickly.
Already he was beginning to associate her with the ranch and Moraine, two places he never intended to think of again once he was gone. Already he could see that she had the kind of dreams a man like him would never fit. The sooner they were through with each other the better.

 

Rachel had barely arrived back at Ruby's in her borrowed car when Angie from the diner showed up. “Word in town is that you're working for Shane. I just thought I'd better pop in and give you a warning. There will be questions.”

Rachel blinked. “About what?”

Ruby and Angie exchanged a glance. “Well, some women will want to know whether he's as devastating as he used to be. Whether he makes you get that fluttery feeling inside when he turns those blue eyes on you and says your name in that deep voice.”

“What? No!” Rachel said.

Another glance exchanged by the two women. Clearly they didn't believe her.

“All right, he's good-looking. I'll give you that,” Rachel admitted. “And he's kind of…I don't know…”

“Sexy as hell?” Angie suggested. “Yes, I saw him in town. Time hasn't done him any harm. He's definitely swoon-worthy.”

“He's attractive,” Rachel said, a bit primly. “But I'm just his employee.”

Ruby opened her mouth to speak.

“
Just
his employee,” Rachel repeated. “I'm not looking for a man.”

“Hmm,” Angie said. “I heard you just got rid of a bad one yesterday, but Celia Truro said she got a look at that guy and he couldn't hold a candle to Shane in the looks department.”

“I wasn't dating Dennis. I was working for him.”

“I know, but still…he was the man you were with, and if he was a jerk, tearing him down just a little by comparing him to Shane wouldn't hurt you. Just sayin'.”

Rachel tried to look offended, but she ended up smiling. “Okay, Dennis was a jerk, and he didn't have Prince Charming looks. In the end he didn't have Prince Charming anything.”

“I know. I can't believe he dumped you right in the street,” Ruby said.

“He didn't dump me. I dumped him.”

“Good. You were smart to do it. I read a lot of romances. I meet a lot of men in my business,” Angie said. “And a truly good man—no matter the relationship—would have at least insisted on giving you a ride to the nearest train, or made sure you had money, or at the very least called someone who could help you.
Heroes don't drive away and leave a woman stuck with no way to get home, no matter what the situation. You don't want to get mixed up with any bad men.”