Finally Home (10 page)

“Dinner?” He twisted back. He had a lean, hungry look about him.

“Yes,” she said, nerves cranking a little tighter. “We'll let you know when it's—”

“Are you the cook?”

“No. I . . .” She shook her head and forced a laugh. “We'd never get another guest if I was.”

He watched her for a second, then nodded once and strode off toward the bunkhouse, strides long and quick.

She scowled after him.

“What's wrong?”

Casie jumped at the sound of Colt's voice. He was still astride Maddy, but the young stallion was notably absent. She glanced behind to see that Sophie was leading him and Tangles toward the barn.

“Case . . .” Colt said. His voice was a low rumble. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” She brought her attention to his face. It looked entirely different without its usual cocky smile. But no less appealing. Just older, more mature. “He's just a little . . .” She paused as she shifted her gaze to the bunkhouse where her guest had disappeared. “Did he seem kind of strange to you?”

“Strange? What do you mean?”

She glanced at him. His eyes were narrowed beneath the brim of his Stetson, his dark brows lowered.

“Nothing,” she said, but he didn't drop it.

“Strange how?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. The trouble in town has just made me a little skittish, I guess.”

“You think he's a thief?”

“No! I didn't say that. He's just . . .” She forced a laugh. “He asked a lot of questions.”

“About what?”

She shouldn't be slandering a paying guest. Okay, technically, maybe she shouldn't be slandering
anybody,
but.... “About who else was on the ranch.”

He glanced toward the bunkhouse again, then nodded as if to an unheard voice. “I'm staying the night.”

“What?”

“Tonight.” His gaze was as steady as an osprey's on hers.

“You can't stay. We don't have an extra—”

“This isn't up for debate,” he said and pivoted Maddy away in a flashy maneuver that would have made John Wayne drool.

CHAPTER 9

B
y the time evening chores were done, Emily was busy with supper preparations. Colt could hear her humming tunelessly to Willie Nelson's best as he toed off his boots in the entryway. Hanging his jacket on a hook inside the old wardrobe, he stepped into the kitchen in time to see the girl stare out over open fields, halfheartedly stirring the contents of a pot. From the scratchy radio above the refrigerator, Willie crooned on about heroes and cowboys.

“What—” Colt began, but she squawked and spun toward him, dreadlocks bobbing.

He jolted back in surprise. “Will you quit doing that!”

“Holy shorts! Will you—” She glared at him. “Wear a bell or something!”

He grinned, heart rate diminishing. “What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?” he asked and, approaching, stared into the pot. “Because you seem to be stirring water.”

She blinked as if returning from a dream. “It's not water.”

“It looks like water.”

“It's broth.”

“Is that water with salt in it?”

“No. It's . . .” She waved a hand at him. “Why aren't you scrubbing potatoes yet?”

He chuckled. “Because I don't know how many you need.”

She hurried to the refrigerator, pulling out items seemingly at random. “Just start in. I'll tell you when to stop.”

He studied her in silence. In this house of perplexing women
she
was usually the one he understood the best. “You okay?”

“Of course I'm okay. What happened with our new guest?”

“What do you mean?”

“Our guest. Lincoln Alexander. Didn't he show up at the airport or what?” she asked just as Lumpkin trotted in from the living room. A diaper had been pinned around her hindquarters. Her tail, already bobbing merrily, had been thrust through a hole in the cotton.

“Seriously?” Colt asked, staring at the ridiculous sight.

Emily shrugged. “It was
your
idea. What about Alexander?”

“I delivered him to the bunkhouse a couple hours ago.” He found a stiff-bristle brush in the top drawer and pulled a bowl of dark-skinned potatoes from the pantry. “Did you think I'd forget?”

“You
are
kind of old,” she said and nodded toward the taters. “Can you dice them, too?”

“Not if you're going to insult me.”

“It wasn't an insult,” she said and scowled at nothing in particular. “I like old. Always have.”

“Why doesn't that make me feel better?”

“I don't know,” she said, and pulling a few leaves from one of the vines that grew on the windowsill, dropped them into the so-called broth. “What's he like?”

“Who?”

“Geez, Dickenson, are you getting senile or what?”

“Listen, missy . . .” he said, tone insulted.

She turned toward him, already looking guilty, and he squirted her in the face with the sprayer.

Jumping back, she squawked like a scared chicken and he chuckled. “Don't get sassy with me, youngun.”

“You got me wet.”

“Shocking,” he said. “How many potatoes?”

“I don't know until you tell me about the new guy. Is he nervous, stodgy, funny, dopey?”

“You make him sound like one of the nine dwarves.”

“There were seven dwarves . . . and will you hurry up with those?” she asked, pushing his arm toward the potatoes.

He picked up the first one.

“Think about it,” she said, stirring with her right hand as she added cream with her left. Fragrant steam was beginning to waft into the air. Emily Kane was the only person he knew who could make water smell good. “Sonata, for instance . . .”

“Only eats food that food eats?”

She grinned a little, then corrected herself sternly. “There's nothing wrong with vegans.”

“Except they're abnormal.”

“And impossible to cook for.”

He chuckled. “What about Sonata?”

“You can pretty much just glance at her and think . . .” She nodded as she stared out the window again. “Vegan or not, she's still a half-a-potato kind of girl.”

“She
is
pretty skinny.”

“It's not that she's . . . Okay, yeah,” she said, scowling at the inoffensive sauce that smelled a little like heaven. “She
is
skinny. But so is Casie, and Casie can eat.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Well, she doesn't eat as much as
you
do. But then . . .” She made a face. “Neither does any other creature not used for draft purposes.”

“So now I'm old and
fat?
”

“Not fat,” she said and raised her wooden spoon at him. “Yet.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I help you out.”

“I think it's because of my cinnamon rolls.”

“I'm so easy,” he sighed, and she laughed. It was a nice noise, relaxed, rolling softly through the warmth of the kitchen. The sound made him smile. It wasn't as if Emily had ever been difficult. Oh, she had convictions that bordered on pushy, but she was kind. She might be surprised to hear it, but she had
always
been kind. Early on, however, there had been a brittle caginess to her, a crafty defensiveness that had all but disappeared over time.

“So the guest . . .” she said, pushing him back on track.

“He's young. At least by my curmudgeonly standards. Eighteen, maybe. Tall. Scrawny.”

“Is he hot?”

“If you make me stand here and scrub potatoes while discussing teenage boys I'm going to have to put that apron back on.”

She grinned, face barely visible past her falling dreadlocks. “Does he look hungry?”

“Yeah,” he said and scowled at the potato he was working on. “He does, kind of.”

“What does that mean?”

He chuckled, coming back to himself. “You're the one who asked.”

“Yeah, but I didn't think you'd make it sound like we were discussing the meaning of life.” She peered askance at the growing pile of nubby tubers. “One more should do it.”

He finished off the last one and moved to the wooden cutting board. It was two inches thick, crisscrossed with a thousand scars, and looked as if it had been sawed straight from a scrub oak in the back pasture.

“So tell me more about Hungry Guy,” she said.

He shrugged, feeling a smidgeon of angst return as he remembered Casie's words. “I'm not sure what to think yet,” he said, not wanting to color her perception unnecessarily, but he should have known better than to bother hiding his feelings; Emily was one eye of newt short of being a witch. “He's quiet.”

“Sophie's quiet,” Emily said. “Doesn't mean she's a mass murderer or anything. Of course. . . .” She squinted and peered into the middle distance as if debating the possibility.

Colt grinned. “I doubt Soph has killed more than a couple people.”

“You're right. She's still young.”

“Takes a while to annihilate whole masses and—”

The door opened. They glanced guiltily at each other, and in a second Sophie had stepped into the kitchen.

“When's dinner?”

“Gotta ask Em,” Colt said, trying not to grin.

Emily glanced behind her. “You look nice,” she said.

Her tone was innocent, making Sophie immediately suspicious. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” Emily said. “Where's Casie?”

“She should be here in a minute.” The girl's tone was still cautious, but she had moved toward the stove, easily distracted by the scent of Utopia.

“It might hurry supper along if you set the table,” Emily said.

Sophie moved toward the hutch that occupied the east wall of the expansive kitchen. Well . . . hutch was a kindly euphemism for an ancient cupboard that had been pulled out of some long-forgotten barn and left to languish in disrepair for years on end. Despite its tilted stance and cracking paint, Emily loved it like a child. Or maybe those were the features that made it endearing for her. Colt wondered what she saw in
him.

“How many?” Sophie asked.

The front door opened and closed.

“Case?” Emily called, raising her voice.

“Yeah?”

“As long as you got your boots on, will you make sure Max and Sonata will be here for dinner?”

“Sure.”

“And tell them it'll be ready in half an hour or so.”

“Okay,” she said and headed back out.

“So everyone's eating?” Sophie said.

“Far as I know.”

“Which makes eight.”

“Unless you count Colt as two.”

“I
do
have a big personality,” he said.

Emily snorted. Sophie ignored him as she set bright, mismatched plates around the table.

“You did want the skins left on, right?” Colt said, gazing at the nubby tubers.

“Yeah. That's where most of the nutrients are.”

“Which means approximately none,” Sophie said.

“That may be true of store-bought potatoes, but these are Lazy Taters. Planted with love and nurtured with care.”

The front door opened and closed.

“I don't think potatoes actually know how you feel about them,” Sophie said, fetching glasses from the top shelf of the hutch.

“Then maybe it's the cow manure fertilizer that makes them so tasty.”

“Let's not use that as a selling point,” Casie suggested and stepped into the kitchen. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold. She rubbed her hands together. Did they hurt? Colt watched her, silently assessing. “Smells good in here. What can I do?” she asked, and in that second he saw that she was favoring her right leg.

“Sit down,” he ordered. The command was a little gruffer than he had intended.

The kitchen went quiet. Three pairs of female eyes turned to him in question.

“The baby's up,” he explained lamely, hearing Bliss awaken in the living room. “Someone has to hold her.” With that he hurried away.

“What's happening?” Emily asked.

He ignored the question although it was a fairly good one. After all, Casie had made it perfectly clear that she didn't need him in her life. So why the hell was he here?

Bliss blinked up at him and cocked a toothless smile. Something hurt for a second near the center of his chest.

Maybe this was why he showed up every morning at the crack of dawn, he thought, and reaching down, lifted the baby to his shoulder. If he weren't such a manly man he would be perfectly content to sit in the nearby rocking chair and discuss world problems with this tiny bundle that warmed his soul, but the potatoes called. The irony of the situation was not lost on him as he toted Bliss back to the kitchen . . . where Casie had taken his place at the cutting board.

He spread a steadying hand across the baby's shoulders and glowered at Casie's back. “That's my job.” His tone, he discovered, was no more convivial than before.

“Since when are you so hepped up about potatoes?” Emily asked.

“Since about an hour ago,” Colt said.

Casie tightened her jaw and said nothing.

“What happened an hour ago?”

“You going to tell her?” Colt asked.

“I'm an adult, you know,” Casie said. Her pouty tone might have belied her words a little.

“Then sit down and act like one.”

Both girls were staring at them now.

“What's going on?” Emily asked.

“Dickenson's being stubborn. That's what's going on,” Casie said.

“Me?” he countered, and felt an angry burble of protectiveness shoot through him. “Talk about the kettle and the pot.”

“Is someone going to tell me—”

“Nothing hap—” Casie began, but Sophie cut her off.

“Oh, for crying out loud! Why don't you two just get a . . .” She stopped herself, heaved a sigh, and started off in another direction. “Casie came off a horse.”

“What? No!” Emily said, drying her hands on a nearby towel. “How? Are you okay? Sit down.”

“It's no big deal,” Casie said. “I wasn't even—”

“Sit down!” Emily repeated and yanked out a kitchen chair.

Colt stifled a grin.

“You know this is actually
my
house, don't you?” Casie asked.

Colt had to turn away to hide his glee.

“Exactly,” Emily said, nodding bossily at the chair. “What do you think would happen if you were seriously injured?”

“The point is that I
wasn't—
”

“What if you lost the ranch?” Emily's eyes were so wide with earnest worry that she could have made a boulder weep. Casie wasn't a boulder. “What would happen to Bliss?”

All activity stopped. Casie sank guiltily into the chair.

“Talk to me!” Emily demanded, and with one glance at Colt, tugged Bliss from his arms before settling the baby onto her mentor's lap. Casie hugged the infant to her chest. There was something about the sight of the two of them together that made it difficult to breathe . . . the somber mocha face juxtaposed against the other's peachy complexion.

Cassandra May Carmichael
wasn't
the most beautiful woman in the world. Somewhere in the left-thinking part of his brain Colt probably knew that, but she had sucked him in from the moment he'd seen her standing knobby-kneed and pink-cheeked in front of Mrs. Littleman's chalkboard. Her short, caramel-colored pigtails had stuck out at odd angles beside her ears, and her eyes had been so round and guilelessly blue that he'd felt an immediate and inexplicable urge to put grasshoppers in her lunch bag.