Mail-Order Millionaire (11 page)

“No, definitely not. He ate at his country club every night. I taught myself.”

“Tonight it’s my turn to cook,” she said. “  I do know how. Grandma made sure of that. She always made chicken and dumplings in the winter.”

“All right,” he said, holding the back door open for her. “You talked me into it.”

She left her jacket on the back of a kitchen chair and reached into the refrigerator for the chicken. “Now leave me alone for a few minutes so I can concentrate. If I don’t get the dumplings just right they fall like rocks.” With her hands in the flour, she said, “You’re covered with mud. Why don’t you run a bath upstairs in the tub? Grandpa’s straight-edge razor is in the cabinet and there are clean overalls in his closet.”

She heard him take the steps two at a time as she measured baking powder. A half hour later she was chopping onions and carrots when she heard Max come thumping back down the stairs. Without turning from the chopping block she caught a whiff of pine-scented bath soap.

“How was it?” she asked.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, his touch so warm and so sensual that her stomach did a double somersault. She wanted to turn, to bury her head against his chest and stay there while he stroked her shoulders and then her back, but she didn’t. She continued her chopping until her hand hurt.

“It was fine,” he answered at last.

Still she didn’t look at him. “Did you find everything?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Overalls fit?”

“What do you think?”

Reluctantly she turned to see him in Grandpa’s collarless striped shirt and wide blue jeans, so wide they had to be held up by Grandpa’s suspenders. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave in to the urge to chuckle. She shook her head and let the laughter bubble out of her lips.

His lower lip jutted out as he hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “What’s so funny? I’ll bet you didn’t laugh when your grandfather dressed like this.”

She shook her head. “No, we didn’t. But he’d be glad to see you getting some use out of his clothes. He hated waste.”

“A true Yankee.”

She found herself staring at the sharp contours of Max’s clean-shaven face, wanting to run her finger along his jaw to see if it felt as smooth as it looked. He followed her gaze.

“What’s wrong, did I cut myself?”

“No,” she said and turned back to shaping the dough for the dumplings.

He straddled a straight-backed pine chair and leaned forward to watch her. “Smells good.”

“That’s the chicken.”

“I know.”

Suddenly she turned to face him, her hands coated with flour. “I really appreciate what you did today. I couldn’t have done it alone.”

“Sure you could, you just couldn’t have done it as fast.”

“How can I repay you?” she asked.  Since he was already a millionaire, it wouldn’t be money. But she knew what some men would want and what they would say.

“How about a jar of syrup?”

“That’s all?”

“I’d never ask for more than you’re willing to give.”

Reassured, she went back to the stove to drop the dumplings onto the rich chicken broth. They weren’t quite as light as Grandma’s, but later, when all was cooked and served, Max ate three helpings, saying Yankee food had been underrated. After dinner they went into the living room, carefully sat on opposite ends of the couch and watched the fire in the fireplace, muscles aching, in a comfortable silence.

Miranda finally brought up the subject of the empty four-poster in the other bedroom, the one next to hers. He said the couch was fine, but she insisted, knowing it wasn’t. She yawned and went up the stairs ahead of him. With her hair pinned up on top of her head she soaked in the long porcelain claw-foot tub, picturing Max, the last person who’d been there, running the same soap over his broad shoulders, across his chest...

It wasn’t her idea to have him stay there for the weekend. It wasn’t her idea and it wasn’t a good idea, no matter how many jars of syrup they bottled. He was too helpful, too considerate, too good-looking even with a five-o’clock shadow. She couldn’t have imagined how anyone could look sexy in Grandpa’s suspenders, but Max did. He made her want what she couldn’t have, someone to share the work with, someone to share her bed with and someone to share the rest of her life, the way Grandma had had.

She scrubbed her back briskly with a loofah. This man was not a farmer. He was a meteorologist amusing himself for one weekend in the country. His place was not here on the flat farmlands, but high on top of a mountain mixing it up with the world’s worst weather. And that’s where he’d be on Monday, or the next Monday, gone for good, out of her life forever, and not a moment too soon.

Many more days like this followed by nights like this and she would be helpless to stop the yearning, the longing that she felt when he looked at her or touched her. How long would it be before she made a fool of herself and threw herself at him?

Just let me get through one more day, she prayed. Let me concentrate on the work and not the man. Let him be cranky or irritable and let him look ugly for a change. And take away that Southern drawl! She slid down until the water rose to her chin, squeezed her eyes shut and promised herself she would be strong.

The next day went just as she’d planned. Miranda stayed in the shack, Max worked the trees with the horses. They had the system down so well she bottled even more syrup than the day before. She stumbled out of the shack at the end of the day, more tired than the day before, and went to find Max, who was taking the last bucket from the last tree.

Concerned by the frayed condition of the leather he was going to fasten it to, she reached up to the horse’s flank to test it with her fingers. Suddenly the leather snapped apart in her hands, sending the bucket flying and the syrup spilling all over the ground. The horse whinnied and stepped away from the tree. Her giant front hoof landed on Miranda’s foot.

She inhaled sharply and doubled over with pain.

“Good God,” Max shouted, pulling her up with his hands under her arms. “What happened?”

“Gretel stepped on my foot,” she gasped. “My fault for spooking her.”

“Let’s get back to the house.” He scooped her up in his arms and trudged back through the mud. With her teeth clenched, she buried her head against his denim jacket. In the kitchen he set her down on a chair and gently stretched her legs out in front of her on another chair. She threw her head back, trying not to wince as he peeled her boot and then her sock off the injured foot. He ran his fingers up around the anklebone and she sucked in her breath and gripped the edge of the chair with her gloved fingers. One corner of her brain registered the smell of baked beans laced with maple syrup coming from the oven.

“That harness is as old as I am. I should have known...”

“Relax. Don’t think about it. I’m going to pack it with ice, see if we can keep the swelling down.”

She shivered. “Do you have to?”

“Have to, no, should, yes.” Carefully he pulled her jacket from her shoulders and before she could protest he brought the blanket from the hall closet and wrapped it around her. Then he went to the living room and came back with a glass of mulberry wine. “Medicinal purposes,” he said, worry lines creasing his face.

She lifted her arm, took a sip of wine, then reached for his hand. “I’m okay, really. It’s probably just a sprain and I’ll be fine.”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly and smiled down at her. “Sure you will. I’ll get the ice.”

Carefully he lifted her feet off the chair so he could sit on it. He took her foot in one hand, the ice, encased in a plastic bag, in the other. She wiggled her toes and they felt puffy and swollen. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the solid pine backrest. For several minutes he held the plastic bag against her foot, cushioning her soles against his warm chest.

He looked out the kitchen window. “I ought to put the horses in. Can you hold this yourself?”

Her eyes flew open. “Of course.” She reached for the ice pack. “I’m not completely helpless.”

“If eight hundred pounds of horse had stepped on me, I’d be helpless and you’d be holding my feet and icing my ankle, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded, her eyes tearing from the pain and the frustration of being hurt. Now of all times, now when she needed to be strong and healthy.

“Miranda,” he said, standing at the back door. “You’re going to be all right.”

She gave him a watery smile and he closed the door behind him. She told herself he was right, she would be fine, but when? When he came back he wrapped her foot and ankle in a gauze bandage he’d found in the medicine chest in the bathroom. He gave her two aspirin and then dinner in the kitchen, her leg still propped on the chair. She was overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness, confused by his taking charge and rattled by his physical presence. The closer he got the more helpless she felt.

When she finished the last baked bean on her plate, her foot was numb and so was her brain. He reached for her plate and put it into the sink. “How are you doing?”

“Feeling no pain,” she said through stiff lips.

“Good. Where’s the nearest doctor?”

“On Main Street, why?”

“Because I’m taking you in to see him in the morning.”

“What can he do?”

“Take an X ray, bandage it properly.” He put water on the stove to boil for coffee.

“I’ll be late for work, they’re picky about that,” she protested.

“We’ll get an early start.”

“Now wait a minute. You’re going home tomorrow. I can get myself there.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I don’t like depending on somebody else.”

“Neither do I, but all I’m doing is driving you to town. If it were me...”

“I know. I’d be driving you to the doctor and making your coffee...”

“And carrying me upstairs to bed?” he challenged her with a gleam in his eye.

“Oh, no.” She was sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of depression. If she couldn’t even get up the stairs by herself...

“You wouldn’t?”

“Of course I would if I could, but I bet you wouldn’t like being babied any more than I do.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned at her. “I’d let you carry me up to bed anytime you want. I’d even let you kiss me good-night if you insisted.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing or crying, she wasn’t sure which. “All right.”

“All right, you’ll kiss me good-night?”

“All right, I’ll go to the doctor.”

The look in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. Was it so wrong to want to kiss him good-night? She knew how his lips would feel on hers, warm and firm. He crossed the room, lifted her and carried her up the stairs. With her arms around his neck, her cheek was pressed against his.

“Max,” she gasped, “I’m too much for you.”

“You’re right,” he said, backing onto her feather bed and cradling her tightly to him. “Way too much.” He rolled on his back, cushioning her and sinking deeper onto the soft billows of the bed, one arm around her shoulders, the other on her round bottom. She turned to roll out of his arms and landed on top of him, her breasts pressed against his chest, her bandaged foot in the air, feeling ridiculous, but so relaxed and so mellow she didn’t care.

“Come here,” he muttered.