Kissed by a Rancher

“I’ll help you cook breakfast,” Josh volunteered, the words coming without thought.

She laughed softly. “Thanks. You don’t look like the type to have done much kitchen work.”

He grinned. “I’m a man of many talents,” he joked. “I’ve cooked. I’ve camped and cooked, cooked as a kid. Occasionally I cook at home, but rarely, I’ll admit. I can help. I can serve and that sort of thing.”

“Watch out, I’ll take you up on your offer.”

“I mean it. I’ll help you,” he said, still wondering why he was so drawn to her. He should have gone to bed an hour ago or when he arrived. “What time will you begin cooking?”

“About six. You don’t have to get up that early.”

“I’m usually up that early. I’ll set the alarm on my phone,” he said, getting his phone from his pocket. “I haven’t had a call since I arrived,” he added, realizing that was a switch in his life, as different as so many other things about this night.

“You surely don’t get many calls at night.”

“Sometimes. Not getting any is a unique change in my life, and I can live with it tonight easily.” He put away his phone. “It’s like a holiday. Tell me more about your family.”

He settled back in the chair, listening and talking to her as the fire died into gray ashes. It was after one in the morning when she stood. “I should go to bed. Six a.m. will come soon.”

He stood to walk with her, stopping at the door to his room for the night. “I’ll see you at six. Thanks again for this room.”

“Thanks for offering to help in the morning. Good night, Josh.”

“Good night,” he replied in a husky voice, gazing into her eyes and as riveted as he had been the first moment he had seen her. Still puzzled by his reaction to her, he turned to his door.

Then he glanced down the hall to see her ponytail swing with each step as she walked away. There was nothing about her that should set his heart racing, but it did. He still wanted her in his arms, wanted to kiss her at least, before he left Beckett forever. What made his heart beat even faster were the slight reactions she’d had—her blue eyes widening, a sudden breathless moment in which neither of them spoke—that told him she had felt something, too. He didn’t intend to let that go by without doing something to satisfy his curiosity.

Two (#ulink_47a07adf-1c41-5b19-a6ef-de2f26ff5488)

Certain Josh stood watching her, Abby felt her back tingle as she walked to her door. What was it about him that made her heartbeat race and took her breath away? She hadn’t had that kind of reaction to anyone since she was a teenager. She occasionally dated Lamont Nealey, who lived close by. She had grown up friends with him, closer friends than with any other man, but he never stirred a quicker heartbeat. A slight physical contact with Lamont never made her tingle all over.

As she changed into flannel pajamas, she kept glancing at the door that separated her from Josh. She couldn’t shake her awareness of him so close at hand.

She smiled as she thought about his offer of help with breakfast because he had to be wealthy and influential. He probably had a lot of people working for him and keeping him from everyday tasks. She didn’t really expect him to pitch in and help.

* * *

The first thing Abby did on waking was slip into her robe and shove her feet into fuzzy slippers to walk to the window. While the wind continued to howl, she opened the drapes and stared at the falling snow. It meant more business, but she never lacked long for business. It was the third weekend in March. A snowstorm rarely occurred so late, but this had been a cold winter in Beckett. With more snow, no one would be leaving the inn, and her brother and sister couldn’t get home, so she had a day of work ahead of her.

She glanced at the closed door to the sitting room and wondered how Josh had fared on her short sofa. Her gaze went to the clock, and she hurried to shower.

She spent too long deciding what to wear, finally giving up and pulling on faded jeans, a green sweater and her suede boots. She had told Josh 6:00 a.m. but went to the kitchen half an hour earlier so she could get started alone.

At six on the dot she heard his boots against the wood floor, and her pulse speeded—something she wished wouldn’t happen.

“Good morning,” Josh said, bringing a dynamic charge into the air as he smiled at her. He had on a navy sweater, jeans and boots and looked like a cowboy in an ad in one of the Western magazines. “Or at least it’s a good snowy morning. I see more of the white stuff coming down.”

“Sorry. I think you’re stuck for a time. Did you get any sleep on the short sofa?”

“Yes, I did. I’m enormously grateful that I didn’t have to sleep in the lobby of your town’s only hotel.”

“I’m sure they would have let you sit in a chair all night.”

“They had some employees who couldn’t get home, so they were as booked up and as overcrowded as you. I think I was in the town’s only available taxi.”

“I know you were. We have only one taxi, with people taking different shifts to drive.”

He smiled. “What can I do to help? It looks as if you’ve been up awhile and working. How about I get the pots and pans washed?”

“Wonderful,” she said, surprised he would pick such a job. “I’m getting the breakfast casseroles made. The biscuit dough is rising. I’ll get the fruit and coffee soon. The table is ready. We’re moving along.”

“What you mean is, you’re moving along. Pretty good for working without any help. You will make someone a good wife,” he said, smiling at her as he crossed the kitchen.

“Are you interested?” she teased, certain there was no way he would have any designs on her—or anyone right now—as a wife. He had been about to pass her, but he stopped and turned to look at her. He stood close, and she wished she could take back her flirty remark.

“If I were looking for a wife, I would want to find out what other qualities you have along with capable, kindhearted and fun. Without looking for a wife, it might be interesting to find out,” he teased back, his eyes twinkling and making her insides flutter.

“I should have stuck to talking about what work needs to be done,” she whispered, wishing she weren’t breathless. “I don’t usually joke like that with the guests.”

“You mean flirt like that with the guests,” he said with amusement, and she could feel the blush that swept across her cheeks. Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, and his smile vanished as he looked more intently at her. “Now I really do want to find out,” he said in a deeper tone of voice.

“No, you don’t. It wouldn’t possibly interest you. In every way,” she whispered, “I lead a quiet life without excitement, without the outside world intruding, without—” She stopped to stare at him.

“Without what?” he prompted, stepping closer, his gaze searching hers.

“If you wait a lifetime, you won’t get an answer from me on that one. It’s my fault we’re on a subject we don’t need to discuss. Let’s go back to talking about breakfast.”

“That makes what you said all the more interesting,” he remarked, placing his hands on both sides of her and hemming her in against the counter, leaning even closer. His eyes were a dark brown, his brown hair straight and neatly combed. His jaw was clean-shaven and she could detect the fresh smell of his aftershave. Her heart pounded, and she couldn’t get her breath.

“Josh, maybe I should take care of breakfast alone,” she said.

“I disturb you?”

“You’ve disturbed me since you rang the bell last night at ten,” she said bluntly. “I need to get back to breakfast before I burn something.”

A faint smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “My morning has started out better than I ever dreamed possible,” he said quietly and dropped his hands, moving back.

She passed him, going to the dining room even though she had the table set and ready. She opened a drawer in a buffet and got two serving spoons, moving without thinking about what she was doing, trying to give her pounding heart a chance to slow to normal.

For a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her. With the kind of reaction she had to him, she shouldn’t be alone with him. She didn’t need distraction from her routine life, or a charmer like Josh, a man who’d merely stopped in Beckett because of a storm. He was another man like her father. The charmer, the traveler, the businessman who could not settle or be faithful. Josh had the same knack for making friends with people he met, and any man with a private jet did a lot of traveling, constantly reminding her of her father. She shivered and turned back to work.

When the weather permitted, Josh would leave, and he would not return. Her heart did not need to get caught up with someone who would go on his way without a thought for Beckett or anyone who lived here.

Returning to the kitchen, she glanced at Josh as he stood at the sink filled with soapy water with his sleeves pushed up, his watch on the windowsill while he scrubbed pans. Amazed that he would work on a tedious, routine job he didn’t have to do, she went on to get breakfast, trying to forget Josh or her response when he had stood close or when he flirted.

They worked quietly together, but even as she concentrated on breakfast as the morning progressed, she was aware of Josh working nearby.

Though it was still early for breakfast, she heard shuffling in the hall. As she expected, her tenant Mr. Hickman entered the kitchen, smiling at her. “Good morning, Abby. You look as beautiful as ever.”