Rachel's Rescuer

In the silence of the room, she whispered, “But Lucas has his own secrets, I’ll bet.”

Chapter Three

A smile curved Lucas’s lips as he stood outside the closed living room door, but it was quickly replaced by a worried frown. He’d gotten just enough information to worry him.

Rachel. The name fit her. Soft and warm, yet there was strength in it. Like the strength he saw in her. He still suspected her last name wasn’t Stevens. The woman was a walking pack of lies. But he had a feeling she didn’t like telling them any more than he liked hearing them.

As he made his way to his office, he replayed their conversation in his mind. She had done a fine job of avoiding his questions. He hadn’t liked doing it. All the time he was asking, he’d felt like an interrogator. But he needed answers, if nothing more than out of simple curiosity. Only it was more than that. As much as he’d grown to distrust women, there was something about this particular one that kept tugging at him. It was nothing she said. In fact, he sensed her drawing away from him, whenever he was around. He suspected it was her way of protecting herself. She didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her for that. If she had caught even a hint of what he’d been thinking and feeling around her, she had good reason. He didn’t trust himself.

When the door opened, he looked up to see his stepbrother. Harley glanced into the hallway, then shut the door behind him. “How’d it go?”

Lucas didn’t want to admit how much it had bothered him to question her. “Fine, but I didn’t learn a lot. It might be easier to find out something from Cody.”

Harley’s head moved back and forth. “I don’t know, Lucas. He’s only six.” A grin replaced his frown. “But he’s smart as a whip. He can read as good as a kid twice his age.”

Lucas barely noted the comment. The boy reminded him too much of what he’d lost. “Maybe you should talk to him. Find out what you can. He doesn’t think much of me.”

Harley settled into his favorite chair. “I think you scare him, Lucas.”

“Scare him? I’ve hardly said a word to him.”

“Try smilin’ once in a while,” Harley suggested. “I think you even scare Rachel.”

She ought to be scared. Lucas had to admit to himself that his own reaction to her scared him. He’d managed to keep his distance. Except for that little meeting on the stairs. Because of that, he’d escaped to the office with his teeth gritted so hard to keep from pulling her up next to him, his jaws hurt. The scent of peaches had been all over her. Sweet, succulent peaches. A rarity on the ranch, especially in the winter months. The aroma had made his dry mouth water with the need to see if she tasted the same. Just one kiss, one taste, and he could have his answer and forget—

“…Marty and John gonna get here?”

Lucas jerked his thoughts back to the business at hand, glad Harley couldn’t read his mind. “John said he’d talked to Marty.” He glanced at his watch. “They ought to be here about dinnertime. You don’t think…?”

“Bet she would,” Harley answered the unfinished question with a grin.

Lucas got to his feet. “Good. You can ask her.”

“Oh, no,” Harley argued. He stood, stopping Lucas on his way to the door. “I’m takin’ Cody outside. You ask her.”

Lucas shook his head. He didn’t want to be alone in the same room with her, if he could help it. God only knew what he might do. He needed time to get himself under control. “She’ll refuse if I ask.”

“Oh, hell, Lucas,” Harley laughed. “Use some of that Callahan charm on her.”

Lucas considered it. He could keep it brief. He’d ask, she’d answer, and he’d be out the door. She would either rustle up a dinner for them all, or they’d scrounge for whatever they could throw together. He’d just keep some distance from her.

“You want me to cook for six people?” Rachel asked when Lucas approached her.

Hell, all she had to do was say yes or no. He kept his distance, but it didn’t seem to help much. Even from across the room, he could smell peaches. Or imagined he did. “There’s plenty of stuff here,” he pointed out.

Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, nearly bringing a groan from him. She shook her head and muttered, “I don’t know what I can fix.”

He waited for his chance to escape. “Fix anything,” he snapped. “John and Marty will be so hungry when they get here, they won’t take time to notice what it is.”

She walked to the cabinet, reached up and opened it wide. Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She’d changed into another pair of jeans, and dammit if they weren’t tighter than the others. She had exchanged the oversize sweatshirt for a shirt that hugged her close and barely grazed the tops of her pockets. Until she stretched up to reach high into the cabinet. With the simple movement, she bared a large expanse of creamy skin above the waistband of her jeans.

He couldn’t stop his feet from moving him toward her, his gaze riveted on her flesh. Before he reached touching distance, she turned her head to glance back.

“I—” She stopped, staring at him, her blue eyes wide. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she tugged at the bottom of her shirt, pulling it down. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink. “I’ll find something. I’ll get Cody to help.”

“I promised to show him around the ranch,” Lucas managed to say without choking. He had to get out before he did something they would both regret. Concentrating on keeping his feet from tangling with each other, he started backing up.

“He needs his snowsuit and—”

“He’s got it,” Lucas barked. “You think a man doesn’t know how to dress a little kid?”

“Of course,” she whispered. Her eyes glittered, and her teeth scraped her lip again.

He yanked on his coat, then grabbed behind his back for the doorknob, missed it, and swore under his breath. His second try brought success, and he was out the door so fast, he closed it on the brim of his hat.

“Hey, Lucas!” Harley called to him from the corral. “Come give us a hand.”

Shaking his head to clear the fog, Lucas clomped through the snow. In the corral, Harley had tied an aged sled behind their oldest, slowest horse. Cody sat on the sled, gripping the sides.

“Hey, Cody, you warm enough?” Lucas hollered.

Cody’s head bobbed up and down, and he stared at Lucas.

Lucas strode through the snow to tug the little boy’s knit cap farther onto his head. “Your mom is worried about you.”

Cody shrank away from him. “I’m okay. ’S not c-cold.”

Yeah, sure. Even Lucas could feel the bite of the wind. He looked up to see a silly grin on Harley’s face. “What?”

Harley’s grin widened.

“Harley, what the—”

“Smile,” Harley replied, then ducked behind Bay Roller.

“Oh, yeah,” Lucas mumbled. Attempting his widest smile, he hunkered down by Cody. “You ever been sleddin’?”

Cody’s head swiveled from side to side.

“It’s been a long time for me, too,” he admitted. “Now, you hang on tight.”

Harley handed him the halter rope. “I’ll get started on the rest of the chores. Go easy with him.”

Lucas shot him a glare. Didn’t anyone trust him with Cody? “I can handle it.”

“I mean about the questions.”

Lucas wondered just how to go about questioning a six-year-old. The idea wasn’t something he was comfortable with, but it had to be done. “I will,” he called, as Harley walked away.