What a Bride Wants (9 page)

Again he hesitated.
“My mother’s very reserved. Hard to know what she’s thinking or feeling.”

“
How long since you’ve seen her?”

“
Three years, maybe four.”

“
You should try and see her more often.”

“
Now you’re being bossy.”

“
Guess I am. Still, she is your mother. Maybe you should think of her as an underutilized strategic resource.”

“
Yeah, no. Pretty sure that’s not going to work either. How about I say that I hope she’s happy and leave it at that?”

“
We’re really quite different when it comes to family, aren’t we?”

“
You noticed.”

Hard not to, thought Sawyer grimly, and hot on
that
thought came the notion that now would be a good time to tell Ella what he needed to tell her about his family. He looked to the window, at the snow now falling thick and fast. Ella followed his gaze and frowned.

“
What are your thoughts on eating in and staying overnight?” she asked. “Because I have a sneaking suspicion that unless we leave now we’re probably not going to get out. And even if we do get out, I’ll probably not get back in tonight. Or you could go and I could stay,” she added belatedly.

“
Where’s your father?”

“
He went to Livingstone with a load of hay. He’ll either be back soon or he’ll stay put for the night.”

Sawyer frowned
. He’d been perfectly willing to annoy Ella’s father, what with his continued interest in Ella and the kissing in the park, but this was a whole new level of inappropriate behavior.

“
We won’t be completely alone,” she offered next. “Carl and Jem live in the bunkhouse by the barn and there’s a rope line between them and the barn and the house. It’s under snow, but it’ll pull up if anyone needs to get about in a whiteout.”

Better, but only slightly.

“I’m really sorry to put you in such an awkward position.”

“
You keep worrying about my reputation. Do you ever worry about yours?”

“
Er… mine’s pretty sound,” she offered lamely.

“
You barely know me.” That was the crux of it. “You don’t know who you’re getting mixed up with, Ella.”

“
Reese employed you.”

“
He
barely knows me.”

“
Mardie trusts you.”

“
Are you really going to trust Mardie’s instincts when it comes to men?”

“
Ray gave you a room.”

“
In a truck stop bunkhouse.” He glanced outside again. “Will that calf be okay out there in that?”

“
Ha!” she said. “You can’t imply that you’re bad news with one breath and ask about the welfare of the calf in the next. That’s not how it works.”

“
Could be a ruse.”

“
Could be, but I trust my instincts. The cow and calf will be fine. They’re in a well sheltered pocket – that’s why it was so important to get them there this afternoon. As for us staying here tonight—” Ella shrugged. “Whether my father returns or not, I figure we’ll be fine too.”

“
Where do you get your certainty from, Ella?”

“
No one ever showed me how to be any different.” She glanced up at her mother’s portrait and then quickly looked away. “It’s a turn-off, isn’t it?”

“
No.”

This time her glance was for him and it was a startled one. For all her bravado and strength, Ella Grace Emerson had some vulnerabiliti
es too.

“
No, it’s not a turn-off. Don’t ever change.”

“
Oh. So.”

“
Couple of things I need to tell you about, Ella. About me. About my family. Before we settle in for the night.”

“
Good things?”

“
No.”

“
Yeah, didn’t think so. Do we need wine? I think we need wine. And a fire in the living room and a casserole in the oven.” And then the phone on her father’s desk phone began to ring. Ella reached out and picked up.

Her father, unless Sawyer
had missed his guess.

He listened as Ella
told her father that she’d shifted the pregnant cows to the shelter of the foothills and that there was a calf on the ground already. She told him that, yes, Carl and Jem had shifted the rest of the stock to more sheltered locations. She told him she’d see him in the morning.

“
You didn’t tell him I was here,” Sawyer said when she hung up.

“
Wouldn’t want to worry him unnecessarily.”

“
Ella.” There was a warning in there somewhere.

“
You need to let people make their own mistakes,” she told him firmly. “Living room fire, do you think?”

Maybe he did need to let people make their own mistakes.

Ella shot him a quick smile and headed for the kitchen. Sawyer headed for the living room and lit the fire. Five minutes later he found her standing in front of the wine rack in the kitchen, looking thoroughly undecided.

“
This is getting ridiculous,” she said. “There’s more wine in the cellar, but if I go down there I could take hours. First I’m wardrobe challenged and now the wine.”

“
Maybe you’re simply tired and in need of a little rest and relaxation.” Maybe he should leave his confessions for another time.

Yeah, no.

He reached around her, pulled a Shiraz cabernet from the rack and tucked it in her hand. “This one. Not too old, not too new, good body and smooth as silk going down.”

“
Thank you, bartender. I appreciate it.”

He opened the bottle and poured into the two large wine glasses sitting on the bench beside a still frozen loaf of crusty bread.

“Beef casserole’s in the oven.”

“
Great. It’ll go with the wine.”

They returned to the living room.
Ella lit the candelabra - one set on either side of that enormous window, another set on a side table beside the doorway through to the hall.

“
In case of a power outage?” he asked as he sat on the bank of lounge chairs that ran the length of the room. Enough room for eight people to sit comfortably. As for seating two…

“
Not really in case of power outage.” Ella settled in beside him, wine glass I hand. “We’ve a generator and plenty of flashlights. A lot of the time we light the candles because people like the atmosphere.”

“
Of yesteryear?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Feels like church.”

An
other quick grin split her firelit face. “Cozy confessional. You wanted to tell me something but we were interrupted and waylaid.”

Sawyer hesitated.

“Or we could just talk about regular things. Like how long you plan to stay in Marietta?”

An easy
question.

Until he factored in her.

“I have another three week’s work at the saloon before Reese’s regular bartender returns.”

“
You’re better at bartending than Josh is.”

“
I don’t want his job.”

She gave him a measured look
. “Where will you go after that?”

“
Washington State.” And at her enquiring look, “I have a house there.”

“
You have a house?”

“
Bought and paid for. I’ve lived there exactly three weeks out of the past fifty-two. It’s not really working out.”

“
Why not?”

“
I thought I wanted it. But.” There was always a
but
. “It’s a little out of the way. It sits on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, just outside a sleepy little seaside town.”

“
I guess
parts
of that equation might fit with what I know of you,” she offered dubiously. “I’m liking the view I’ve got going in my imagination.”

“
It does have good views. Nothing quite as spectacular as your views, but the ocean has its own charm.”

“
Do you surf and swim?”

“
Yes.”

“
It’s starting to make a little more sense.”

“
There’s a really good wood-fired-oven pizza place in the town,” he offered. “Little hole in the wall operation. In the mornings they do six different types of bagels.”

“
Now you’re talking.”

They lapsed into silence.

Now, he thought. Tell her now.

But he sipped at his wine and stared into the fire instead.

“What kind of work will you do there?” she finally said.

“
The lower floor is set up as a business hub, with a formal meeting room, high-speed communications, records room, and plenty of workspace. The idea was – is – to use it as a base and get more strategic when it comes to the company restructuring jobs I take. Get in, get out, finish up the work from home. Although that has its drawbacks too.”

“
Sawyer, you mystify me. You’re comfortably situated with a home and well-paid work that you seem to be able to take or leave at whim. Forgive me for being wildly impolite, but are you rich?”

“
It’s all relative, don’t you think?”

“
Yeah, no.”

“
I come from an extremely wealthy background but I started again from scratch. I’m not even in the same league as the rest of my family, but I’m certainly not destitute by any means.”

“
So you
are
rich.”

“
Yes.”

“
So why on earth are you working at Grey’s and living in a bunkhouse?”

“
Nobody gets that, do they?”

Ella shook her head.

“I like working at the saloon. Coming into a new place and figuring out what makes everyone tick and how they fit together. I like finding out what’s important to people and what’s not. It helps me do my other job – the one where I look at revenues and deals and then start ripping up management plans. Spread a business out on paper and it’s all too easy to forget that we’re playing with people’s lives.”

Now it was Ella
’s turn to look at the fire.

“
What do you do when people fall for you, Sawyer? Either as a bartender or in your corporate magician incarnation? You’re rich. You’re smart. You’re absolutely gorgeous and of marriageable age. Why aren’t you hooked up?”