“It doesn't bother you much that she's barely old enough to tie her own shoes, does it?”
His expression was almost comical with surprise. “She wears army boots, Case. And if I remember correctly they were tied when sheâ”
“Just so long as she adores you like everybody else . . . that's all that matters, isn't it?”
“She adores me?” he asked and cracked a grin.
She gritted her teeth. “ âMaybe you can teach me about calves, Mr. Dickenson,' ” she mimicked, her voice an iffy falsetto. “Maybe you can teach me to leap tall buildings in a singleâ”
His laughter stopped her. “Geez, Case, I didn't know.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. They were very close. Mere inches separated them, and for reasons entirely unknown to her, she wondered how she smelled because, dang it all, he smelled
great
. Like wood smoke and pine needles. Like wide-open spaces and freedom and laughter. How the hell could he smell like laughter after skinning a damned calf? And what did laughter smell like, anyway?
She shook the thought out of her head and raised one hand in a vain attempt to still the craziness in her cranium. “I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't know, Dickey. To which of that multitude are you referring?”
He looked happy enough to sing. “I didn't know you were jealous.”
“Jealous!” She spit out the word as if it were toxic. “Are you completely insane? Are you totally off your nut? I'm notâ”
“I mean . . . Em seems like a real nice girl and all, but she's just a kid.”
A couple of prime curse words whizzed through her head.
“I need someone older, Case.” He pressed a little closer. “A woman. Someone who's taken a few blows. Seen a little life.”
She squeezed back against the handle of the oven door despite her temper. His lips were inches away.
“Know anyone who might be interested?” he asked and suddenly every last molecule of air seemed to be charged with pheromones or adrenaline or some other kind of illicit magic disguised as simple hormones.
She shook her head.
Colt drew a deep breath, expression going serious. “She adores you, too, you know.”
“What?” She hated the weakness in her knees. Hated the breathiness in her tone. She sounded like a starstruck buckle bunny at her first real rodeo.
“Emily. She thinks the world of you.”
She blinked, trying to get her bearings, wanting to sound mature or at least coherent. “You think so?”
“Yeah.” He nodded a little. “You're doing a good thing, here, Case.”
She shook her head. There was barely space between them to do that.
“Buying the boy's horse. Taking in the girl.”
She winced as self-doubts tussled in her brain. “What if I'm just making a bigger mess of things?”
He smiled. “When has Cassandra May Carmichael ever made a mess of things?”
She didn't even know where to begin and resented the hell out of the fact that she wanted to begin anywhere.
“Emily should be with her mother,” she said. Her voice was very soft, barely audible to her own ears, but he heard her.
He shrugged, a clean lift of well-muscled shoulders. “There must be a reason she's not. Besides, there's a lot she can learn from you.”
“Like what?” Dear God, was she fishing for compliments from Dickey Dickenson, the boy who had dubbed her Crazy Carmichael?
He smiled. “How to be real and honest and still so damned . . .” He lifted his hand toward her cheek and leaned in a little. She held her breath, waiting for the impact, wanting to let go, to close her eyes, to feel.
But the phone rang, startling her. She jumped, gasped a little. Guilt swooped in on a rush of reality.
“Bradley!” she breathed.
He watched her, unblinking, unmoving, as if she'd spoken gibberish, as if he saw no significance whatsoever in the name.
“That's Bradley!” she repeated, heart pounding. “My fiancé.”
The phone rang again, abrasive as a death knell.
“Well,” he said, and reaching past her, pulled open a cabinet. “You'd better get it.” He lifted out the sugar bowl. “Before he thinks you've got another man on the string.”
C
HAPTER
15
“H
ello?” Casie's hand was wobbly on the receiver, shaking like an aspen leaf in a windstorm.
Dickenson watched her, eyes steady as he spooned sugar into his coffee.
“Cass?” Bradley's voice sounded brusque and a little perturbed.
“Yes. Hi.” She glanced at the door, wishing she could magically project Dickenson in that direction. Wishing, at least, that she hadn't answered the phone. But how would it have looked if she had let it ring? And what would have happened without this timely interruption? She was lucky it had saved her from such an uncomfortable conversation.
“What's wrong? You sound kind of breathless.”
“Oh. No.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. It felt hot against her fingertips. “Nothing's wrong. I just . . .” Colton was stirring his coffee, dark fingers strangely mesmerizing against the metal spoon. “I was just . . .” Good God, what was wrong with her? “How are you?”
“Exhausted. Overworked. Angry. You choose.”
“Angry?” Her voice shook a little. She glanced at Colton again. Why was he still there? If he had any manners at all, he would leave her alone to talk to her fiancé, but he set the spoon at a precise angle on the counter and raised the mug in a kind of salute. “What . . .” She turned away, trying to focus. “What's wrong?”
“Oh, it's these idiot monkeys in bookkeeping. I swear they can't add two and two. They haven't once gotten my paycheck right. I mean, it's not brain surgery,” he said and laughed. “Well, I guess it's kind of
about
brain surgery.”
She shifted her gaze back to Colton. He smiled and cocked one lean hip against the counter. The jaunty position suggested he had nowhere to go and all day to get there.
“They, umm . . . what did they do this time?” She couldn't think with him standing there like that, smug as a cat, cocky as a stallion. Did he know she had expected him to kiss her? Did he know she had almost, in some secret, horrible, hidden part of her,
almost
hoped he would?
“What's going on?” he asked.
“What? Nothing.”
“You sound distracted. If I didn't know better I'd think
you
were the one doing rounds at six o'clock this morning.”
“Oh. No.” She tried to chuckle. It sounded hideous. “It's just . . . nothing much. We had some trouble with the cows last night. That's all.”
“We?”
She skittered her gaze to Colton. He was sipping his coffee, eyes narrowed above the chipped rim of an earth-toned mug.
She cleared her voice and tried to pretend he wasn't there. It was like wishing away a tornado. “I told you about Emily, didn't I?”
“What?”
“Emily,” she said and wished she were somewhere else. Anywhere at all. “The girl who's helping me around the farm.”
“I thought she had just dropped by once or twice.”
“Oh, well, no.” She cleared her throat, knowing he would disapprove, but not sure why. “She's working here.”
“All the time?” His voice had grown a little sharper.
“Pretty much.”
“What are you paying her with?”
“What?”
“We don't have money to spare, Cass. You know that.”
“Well, actually, she's working for free.”
“For free?” His tone edged toward suspicion. Bradley didn't believe in a free lunch. “Why? What's she hoping to get out of it?”
She shrugged. “She just . . . I don't know. I guess she needs somewhere to stay, and I need help . . . you know . . . getting things cleaned up.”
“Do you still think that's necessary? I mean, according to Ed, we'll get a better price if we sell it to a big operation instead of to some penny ante private owner.”
“Yeah . . . well . . .” She glanced at Colton again. He looked as relaxed as a kitten, as casual as a retriever with his dark hair curling lovingly around his collar. She pulled her gaze from him and cleared her throat. “I've been thinking about that.”
Dickenson turned a little, settling bull riderânarrow hips against the counter. Her cheeks felt hot. Maybe she should ask him to leave. After all, it was a private conversation. But then she'd have to explain his presence to Bradley. Not that there was anything to be ashamed of. She hadn't done anything wrong.
“What's there to think about, Cass? I thought we agreed to sell it as soon as possible.”
“I know, but the Lazy's . . .” She paused, unable to catalog her flailing thoughts.
“Listen, Cass, I'd like to take time off, too. Relax. Maybe get some fresh air. But we just don't have time for that right now.”
Anger seeped up her neck in a fresh wave of unexpected heat. She kept her gaze strictly off Dickenson, lest he read her mood. “That's not quite how it is, Bradley.”
“Then sell the dump and get it over with.”
She remained frozen in silence for a moment, terrified that Colton could hear him.
Bradley sighed heavily. She could imagine him rubbing his eyes. “Listen, Cass, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. It's just the stress talking. I miss you, that's all. But the good news is that the place might be worth quite a bit if we can find the right buyer. Did that realtor stop by yet?”
The thought of Philip Jaegar and his overpriced daughter zipped through her mind. But she wasn't quite ready to deal with any of that yet.
“No,” she said and felt her cheeks burn even hotter with the lie. “Not that I know of. But I've been . . . I've been pretty busy.”
“I know you have, sweetheart. You're a trouper.” There was a wheedling tone to his voice. “But it's important to stay on track if we want to reach our benchmarks.”
For a moment she was almost tempted to tell him to screw the benchmarks, but she wasn't that kind of girl. At least, she never
had
been.
“Of course,” she said.
“Listen, I'll call the agency again and make sure someone gets out there to look the place over beforeâ”
“No!” she said, then cleared her throat and forced a smile. “That's okay. I can do it. I know you're busy.”
“You've no idea,” he said. “In fact, I have a laparoscopy in ten minutes. I'd better get going. But hey, how did that stuff sell?”
“What?”
“That stuff you took to the auction.”
“Oh.” She remembered the night of the horse sale, the night she'd found Colton in her truck, waiting there like a smoking memory from the still smoldering past. “It . . . it did all right.”
“Great, because rent's almost due.”
“Oh yeah, of course.”
“Just a reminder. Well, I gotta run. Talk to you soon.”
“Okay.”
They hung up seconds later.
Casie remained facing the wall, but she couldn't stay that way forever.
“Sounds like a nice guy.”
She turned toward Colton, anger and guilt and frustration brewing to a dizzying blend. “He
is
a nice guy!”
His brows shot toward his hairline, but his expression was innocent. Too innocent. “That's what I said.”
“But it's not what you meant. You think he's self-centered and egotistical andâ”
He stared at her in silence while Casie's nerves twittered like nervous songbirds.
“
Who
thinks that?” he asked.
“You!”
He raised his brows another quarter of an inch.
“I . . . I know you,” she added.
He shook his head and set his coffee mug aside, expression dark. “Dammit, Head Case, you're the dumbest smart person I know,” he said, and turning, left the kitchen just as the front door slammed.
“Hey, Mr. Dickenson.” Emily's voice sounded breezy from the entryway, entirely changed from her sulky mood earlier. “Thanks again for your help.”
“Sure.”
“Chili's doing great.”
“Chili?” His tone was guarded.
She laughed. “It's better than calling her Calfie or something.”
“Ahh. Well, Chili owes you a lot.”
“Maybe a little. But mostly it was you. Where'd you learn to do that skin thing anyway?”
“Dad tried it a couple of times when I was a kid.”
“Well, it's an awesome trick. The baby's all snuggled up in the straw. Happy as a hippie. And you know what? The mom's right next to her. Close enough to touch, mostly chewing her cud. But sometimes she stretches her neck out and licks her like she can't believe she's really there.”
“That's great.”
Casie could hear him pulling on his boots.
“Yeah, it is. It's fantastic. Like a miracle or something. You want to go see?”
“Not right now. I promised Mom I'd pick up some dewormer.”
“Does she have horses, too?”
“Alpaca.”
“Yeah? That's great. I hear they have fabulous fiber. Twenty times warmer than wool.”
“I guess.”
“Does she knit?”
“Knits and spins.”
“No kidding? I'd love to learn. Do you think she'd mind if I hung out with her sometime?”
“I'm sure she'd love it, but listen, I have to get going.”
“Right now?”
He must have shrugged or made some other gesture because she spoke again.
“Maybe you and Casie could drive together. You know, reduce your carbon footprint.”
“Some other time maybe,” he said and fled, slamming the door behind him.
Emily wandered into the kitchen before Casie could follow his lead.
“What was that about?” Em asked, nodding over her shoulder at his abrupt departure.
Casie busied herself mopping up a drizzle of frosting from the counter. “What's that?”
“Mr. Dickenson.
Sure. Yeah. Some other time
.” She deepened her voice to imitate his tone. He was only a quarter Ponca, but the Native American rumble was extremely distinctive in his voice. “What's with the monosyllabic answers?” She frowned as she dished up three strudel and sat down at the table.
Casie watched, tried to forget the look in Colton's eyes, and changed the subject. “I guess you got your appetite back, huh?”
“Yeah.” Emily grinned. “I've never liked to eat first thing in the morning. But this country air . . .” She shook her head. “Mom always said fresh air and sex made her hungry as a horse.”
“Emily!” Casie scolded, shocked, but the girl only laughed.
“Mom's the one who said it. Scold her, not me.”
Casie blinked, trying to imagine having such a relaxed frame of mind, but she had always been . . . well . . . Dickenson would probably call it uptight. Maybe worse. “She actually said that to you?”
Em grinned around a chunk of pastry the size of an apricot. “She was kind of a flower child.”
“Was?”
Emily swallowed, blinked, then shrugged and took another bite. “I think Doug settled her down a little. He's an okay guy, but I can't imagine having sex with him.” She faked a shudder. “How about you?”
“How about me what?” Casie asked, appalled at the turn of conversation.
“What were your folks like? Were they all snuggly and sexy?”
“God save me,” she said, and Emily laughed out loud, looking thrilled to gain such a reaction.
“I'm going to take that as a no.”
“And thank heavens.”
“So what were they like?” She'd almost finished her first strudel. If the girl didn't make it as an assistant wrangler, she could take up speed eating.
“I don't know. They were just . . . parents . . . average. You know,” Casie said and found it hopelessly pathetic that she still cared that they had fought like badgers, that she had felt it was her fault, that life had been less than perfect.
“No,” Emily said.
“What?”
“I mean . . .” She shrugged, narrow shoulders bobbing beneath her dreads. “Everybody's different, right? Was your dad all gooshy around you? Were you his little angel?”
“Angel?” She laughed. “No. He was . . .” She shook her head, floundering. “You know.”