Chapter Six #2
“How can you touch that thing?” Meredith groaned. “It’s a snake!”
Mrs. Lewis glanced at Rey. “Reckon we should tell her that he used to live in the house?”
“Probably not,” Rey suggested, aware of her white face. “I’ll just stick him up in the loft. Come on, Bandit, I’ll put you in a safe place.”
Meredith was holding both chill-bump laden arms with her hands and shivering.
“There, there,” Annie said gently. “He wouldn’t bite you unless you provoked him. He’s very gentle.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now you go back in there and get the eggs. Don’t let Rey see how frightened you are. Trust me, he’ll take advantage of it. You’ll find rubber snakes in the refrigerator, the blender, the washer…”
“No!” Meredith exclaimed, horrified.
“Just grit your teeth and go back in the henhouse,” Annie suggested. “Quick, before he comes back out.”
Meredith took a quick breath and gave Annie a miserable glance, but she did as she was told.
Her skin crawled when she had to pick up the basket and gather the eggs, especially the ones the snake had been curled around. Now, every time she went to the henhouse, she’d be shivering with apprehension.
You’ve looked at gunshot wounds, accident victims, every sort of horror known to human eyes, she told herself firmly. The snake wasn’t even lacerated! So get it done and move on.
She did, walking back out into the sunlight with a full basket of eggs and a forced look of composure on her soft face.
Rey was waiting for her, leaning against the bumper of the truck with his arms crossed and his hat pulled low over his eyes.
She didn’t dare look at him for long. In that indolent pose, his lean, muscular body was shown to its very best advantage. It made her tingle to think how it had felt to be held against every inch of that formidable frame, to be kissed by that long, hard mouth.
“You get thrown, you get right back on the horse,” he said with approval. “I’m proud of you, Meredith. It would be hard for even a ranch-born girl to go back into a henhouse where a snake had been lurking.”
She took a slow breath. “We don’t face things by running away from them, I guess,” she agreed.
His eyes narrowed under the wide brim of the hat. “What are you running away from, Meredith? What is your father running away from?”
She clutched the basket to her chest. “That’s nothing that you need to concern yourself with,” she said with quiet dignity.
“You work for me,” he replied.
“Not for long,” she pointed out. “In another week or so, I’ll be a memory.”
“Will you?” He lurched away from the bumper and went to stand just in front of her, a tall and sensual threat. His fingers touched her soft mouth lightly. “Those bruises still look pretty fresh,” he pointed out. “And you did ask for a month’s leave, or so you said. Did you?”
She grimaced. “Well, yes, but I don’t have to stay here all that time.”
“I think you do,” he returned. He bent and drew his mouth slowly over hers, a whisper of a contact that made her breath catch. He smiled with faint arrogance as he stood up again. “Anything could happen,” he drawled. “You might like ranch life.”
“I don’t like snakes already.”
“That was a fluke. They’re generally hibernating by November, but it’s been unseasonably warm. Spring is generally when you have to watch where you put your hands. But you don’t need to worry. I’ll protect you from snakes. And other perils.”
“Who’ll protect me from you?” she asked huskily.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would you need protection?” he asked. “You’re well over the age of consent.”
“I’ve lived a very sheltered life,” she said flatly.
He pursed his lips as he studied her, examining the statement. “Maybe it’s time you walked out of the cocoon.”
“I’m not in the market for an affair.”
“Neither am I.” He smiled slowly. “But if you worked at it, you might change my mind.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. Her eyes were cool as they met his. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was ‘drooling’ over you,” she added deliberately.
His face changed. He knew immediately that she’d overheard what he’d said to Leo. He was sorry, because it wasn’t true. He’d been desperate to throw Leo off the track. He didn’t want his brother to know how attracted he was to her.
“Eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, don’t they say?” he asked quietly.
“Never,” she agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go wash the eggs.”
“I said something else that you’ll remember with sordid ease,” he murmured as she started past him.
He caught her by the shoulder and tugged her close, bending to drag his mouth roughly across hers.
“But I didn’t mean that, either,” he whispered against her parted lips.
“Your innocence makes my head spin. I lay awake at night thinking of all sorts of delicious ways to relieve you of it.”
“You’d be lucky!” she exclaimed, shocked.
He laughed softly as he let her go. “So would you,” he drawled. “I’ve been called ‘sensual hell’ in bed, and I can assure you it wasn’t meant to be a derogatory remark.”
“Rey Hart!” she burst out.
“But why take anyone else’s word for it?” he teased. “I’ll be glad to let you see for yourself, anytime you like.”
“If you think… I have never…of all the…!”
“Yes, it does tend to make women flustered when I mention what a great lover I am,” he said with a wicked grin.
She couldn’t get one coherent sentence out. She stomped her foot hard, turned around, and stormed into the kitchen, almost knocking herself down with the door in the process. It didn’t help that Rey stood out there laughing like a predator.
* * *
If she expected Rey to be apologetic about what he’d said, she was doomed to disappointment.
He watched her with narrow, assessing eyes as she went about her household duties.
He didn’t harass her, or monopolize her.
He just watched. The scrutiny made her so nervous that she fumbled constantly.
Her heart ran wild at the attention from those dark, steady eyes.
“Why don’t you want to do something else besides keep house?” Rey asked her one evening when she was putting supper on the table. Leo, as usual, was late getting in. Rey had volunteered to set the table while she fixed Mexican corn bread and chili.
“Keeping house has less stress than most outside jobs,” she said, not looking at him.
“It pays lousy wages,” he continued, “and you could get into a lot of trouble in some households, with men who’d see you as fair game.”
“Do you see me that way?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He glowered at her. “No, I don’t. The point is, some other man might. It isn’t a safe career. In a profession, there are more laws to protect you.”
“Most professional people have degrees and such. Besides, I’m too old.”
“You’re never too old to go back to school,” he replied.
She shrugged. “Besides, I like cooking and cleaning.”
He eyed her curiously. “You’re very good at handling injured people,” he said suddenly. “And you’re remarkably calm in an emergency.”
“It’s good practice for when I have kids,” she said.
He drew in a short breath. “You like being mysterious, don’t you?”
“While it lasts, it’s fun,” she agreed.
His eyes narrowed. “What dark secrets are you keeping, Meredith?” he asked quietly.
“None that should bother you, even if you found them out,” she assured him. She smiled at him from the stove. “Meanwhile, you’re getting fresh biscuits every day.”
“Yes, we are,” he had to agree. “And you’re a good cook. But I don’t like mysteries.”
She pursed her lips and gave him a teasing glance over her shoulder. “Too bad.”
He put the last place setting on the table and sat down at his place, just staring at her, without speaking. “You know,” he said after a minute, frowning, “there’s something familiar about your last name. I can’t quite place it, but I know I’ve heard it somewhere.”
That wasn’t good, she thought. He might remember Leo talking about her brother.
She didn’t want to have to face the past, not just yet, when she was still broken and bruised and uncomfortable.
When she was back on her feet and well again, there would be time to come to grips with it once and for all—as her poor father was already doing.
“Think so?” she asked with forced nonchalance.
He shrugged. “Well, it may come back to me one day.”
Fortunately Leo came in and stopped his train of thought. Meredith put supper on the table and sat down to eat it with the brothers.
* * *
The next morning, Rey came out to the kitchen with a bright silver metal gun case. He set it down beside the counter, out of the way, before he started eating his breakfast.
“Going hunting?” Meredith asked impishly.
He gave her a wary glance. “Skeet shooting,” he corrected. “The season’s over, but I practice year-round.”
“He won two medals at the World championships in San Antonio, this year,” Leo told her with a grin. “He’s an A class shooter.”
“Which gauge?” she asked without thinking.
Rey’s face became suspicious. “All of them. What do you know about shotguns?”
“I used to skeet-shoot,” she volunteered.
“My brother taught me how to handle a shotgun, and then he got me into competition shooting. I wasn’t able to keep it up after I grad…
after high school,” she improvised quickly.
She didn’t dare tell him she gave it up after she finished college. That would be giving away far too much.
He watched her sip coffee. “You can shoot, can you?” he asked, looking as if he were humoring her. He didn’t seem to believe what she claimed.
“Yes, I can,” she said deliberately.
He smiled. “Like to come down to the range with me?” he asked. “I’ve got a nice little .28 gauge I can bring along for you.”
By offering her his lowest caliber shotgun, he was assuming that she couldn’t handle anything heavier.
“What’s in the case?” she asked.
“My twelve gauge,” he said.