Trouble in High Heels

Chapter Nine

“Here we are,” Jackson said as he turned onto a dirt road.

Lori looked at the battered sign for the ranch and a wave of nostalgia mixed with apprehension. She remembered arriving at the ranch during her college years and how quickly she’d felt at home here. Her father’s name hadn’t mattered. Nor had her mother’s notorious love life. Her willingness to work and her ability with the horses and children had earned her acceptance by the rest of the staff.

She thought of Skip Dawson and felt a stab of loss at the wise, gentle man with a deadpan sense of humor. She’d often laughed at his puns because they’d been so dreadfully corny. Now he was gone. “Why do the good ones have to die?” she murmured.

“What?” Jackson asked.

She glanced at him and shook her head. “I was thinking of the owner, Skip, and wondering why good people seem to leave too quickly.”

Slowing, he pulled to a stop and looked at her for a long moment. “You liked Skip.”

She nodded. “He was the best. He was like a second father to me when I was here at the ranch.” She paused, feeling another pang of loss. “I haven’t been close to that many people.” She shook her head, feeling her throat tighten. “I don’t like losing the good ones, the important ones.”

“Like Skip,” he said.

“And Daddy and Momma, and for a long, long time, my sisters.”

“What do you mean your sisters?”

“Daddy wouldn’t let me contact my sisters or my momma after he took me away from her. He was afraid I would turn out like her or Delilah or Katie Priss.”

He shook his head and gave a low whistle. “Did they go to jail? Were they prostitutes or murderers? What was so bad about them? You told me about the letters from your mother, but not about your sisters.”

“I lost them for over ten years,” she murmured. “He was afraid I would become a floozy like my mother. And he thought Delilah was nothing but trouble.”

“What about your older sister?”

“Guilty by association. She was pure as the driven snow. He tried to make up for it, but I couldn’t help feeling like a part of me had been amputated.” A familiar guilt trickled through her, making her stomach hurt. She’d been the lucky one. Her sisters’ childhoods had been much more difficult than hers. She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “I’m being silly. I’ve lived like a princess. I have no room for whining.”

She bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t blurted her feelings to Jackson. Of all people, he probably wouldn’t understand. It was clear that he thought she was spoiled and unreasonable. She looked away, hoping he would take the hint and finish the drive to the ranch.

His hand on her arm took her by surprise. She automatically turned to look at him. He slid his fingers up to cup her jaw. “You’re a screwy little mix, Lori. You pick the strangest things to kick yourself for. When it comes to parents, we all get the luck of the draw. When we grow up, life’s what we make it.” His eyes gentled. “You feel like an orphan no matter when your parents die. You’re left behind to deal with your life on your own. That’s all understandable, but it’s better to have had someone terrific in your life even if you lose them.”

Surprised at his expression of sympathy, she held his gaze and felt a wave of deep understanding flow between them. “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

“Something like that,” he said and cracked a smile. “In your case, better to have been loved and lost than never to have been loved at all.”

His sympathy touched her. She leaned toward him and brushed her lips over his cheek. “Thanks.”

“For what?” he asked, looking surprised.

“For being nice,” she said with a shrug.

His lips twitched, and he turned back to the steering wheel and put the car in gear. “Don’t get used to it,” he said in a gruff voice.

She wondered what experience had made him adopt his philosophy. She wondered what his family life had been like. “You know, we haven’t talked much about your family,” she ventured.

“That’s right. And there’s no need to change that now.”

“It’s not fair that you know almost everything about me and I know nothing about you.”

“You know enough. You know I’m your accountant and you can trust me not to give in to your wiles to get more money and you can trust me to find a temporary husband to meet your specifications. You can trust me to look out for your best interests, because your best interests are my best interests.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It’s still not fair.”

“Fair enough,” he said firmly and pulled to a stop in a graveled parking lot close to the main ranch house.

“What’s your mother like?”

“She’s a hard worker. Always has been. Always had to be.” He muttered the last part under his breath.

“And your father?”

His eyes narrowed, and she saw a dozen emotions come and go in his gaze. “Undependable. Sometimes there, but usually not. Sometimes working, but usually not. It would have been easier if he hadn’t been around at all. Then my mother and brother wouldn’t hope he would come through when he didn’t.”

“Oh,” she said, at a loss.

“Yeah, oh,” he echoed, meeting her gaze. His facial features were neutral, but the way his hands clenched the steering wheel revealed his anger. “Aren’t you glad you asked?”

“Yes and no,” she said, knowing she was treading on eggshells. “Yes, because it makes me understand you a little better. No, because the subject is obviously a painful one for you.”

“Painful,” he mocked. “You have to give a damn in order to feel pain. I don’t.”

It might have been wiser to let it go at that. There was really no need to disagree with him, but Lori had glimpsed his honesty. She skimmed her fingers down his arm to his still-clenched fingers on the steering wheel. “I think I feel some damn right about here,” she said gently, rubbing the tense tendons in his right hand.

His eyes darkened with an emotion that made her feel a little nervous. She almost retracted her hand and her statement, but she had the odd sensation of playing truth or dare, and if she didn’t take the dare, then he would never respect her. She would Super Glue her lips together before she confessed, but she wanted Jackson ’s respect in a big way.

His right jaw twitched once, twice, and he narrowed his eyes as if he were trying to sustain the anger but was having a tough time. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I’ve never heard anyone suggest that my hands had some damn in them,” he said.

“Well, they do. Look at them,” she said, but his hands were relaxed now. “Okay, well, they did have some damn in them.”

“Sure you didn’t imagine it?”

She dropped her jaw in surprise. “Absolutely not, and you know it. Your hands were-” She broke off when she saw the beginning of a chuckle. He was teasing her. She punched his bicep.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, right,” she said. “Like you barely even felt that. You think you’re so clever.”

He grabbed her hand. “There’s more to you than meets the eye. And what meets the eye is enough to cause trouble,” he said with a sigh and tugged her closer. “I don’t like talking about my father,” he said, his mouth a breath from hers.

The atmosphere changed in an instant. Passion took the place of anger. Her heart slammed against her rib cage.

“If anyone else had said what you did, I would have cut them off right away.”

“Maybe you can’t resist my girlish charm, after all,” she managed in a husky whisper, feeling out of her depth but determined to stay in the water with him.

“We’re in trouble if I can’t,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers, barely touching her lips.

Lori strained to press her mouth more fully against his. Her reaction was so fast and instinctive it took her by surprise. Where was this coming from? Why did she want him?

He groaned. “Just this once,” he muttered and really kissed her, shoving her questions far from her mind. Sliding his hands behind her back, he pulled her against him and devoured her mouth with his. His strength, physical and sexual, made her dizzy. He slid his tongue past her lips and demanded a response from her. She felt her nipples grow taut and her internal temperature ratchet upward.

Echoing his moves, she slid her tongue into his mouth and he gave another groan that vibrated all the way down to her toes. She’d been kissed nearly to the point of no return before, but no one had ever made her feel so hot she was certain steam would rise from her skin.

Something about him made him seem so much more like a man to her. Something about him made her wish she was more experienced so she could make him half as hot as she was.

She rubbed her achy breasts against his chest and he took control of the kiss again, sliding his tongue over hers. She suckled it, drawing him deep into her mouth, and she felt his thumbs brush the sides of her breasts.

More, more, more. She wriggled against him and lifted her hands to slide her fingers through his hair.

She felt his thumb move closer to her nipple and a wild, carnal need ricocheted through her like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Touch it, touch me.

He moved his thumb away and she couldn’t quite swallow the whimper crowding her throat.

“Oh, you like that,” he muttered against her mouth. “You want more.”

He rubbed his palm over her nipple and she shuddered.

He swore. “I didn’t think you would be this hot.” He French-kissed her again, still rubbing his palm over her breast. “All it takes is a touch and you kiss me like you’d spread your legs and let me take you right here, right now. I bet you’re already wet.”

Lori felt her cheeks heat at his words. He was right. She was wet and wanting, but she didn’t want him to know. It wasn’t fair that he still sounded in control when she was hot and bothered.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled away from him. She cleared her throat. “That was educational. Now that we’ve done that once, we won’t need to do it again.”

He gave a nonchalant nod. “If you can control yourself.”

His attitude nettled her. “I didn’t start it.”

“The way you look at me started it. You look at me like you want to rip my clothes off and indulge your darkest, baddest thoughts.”

“I do not,” she lied. “You have an inflated opinion of yourself, but that’s no surprise. Your arrogance isn’t the least bit seductive.”

“Well, something about me works for you, because you were begging me to kiss you and touch you. You were begging for more.”

“Don’t take it so personal,” she said, feigning a breezy air although she still felt jittery. “It’s been a while for me. I’m going inside to see Virginia.”

Frowning, Jackson watched Lori get out of the car and walk across the rough parking lot. Although she wore jeans, she also wore heels, which were impractical as hell. The heels, however, did things to her gait that kept his gaze fastened to her backside.

He remembered how she’d felt and tasted and grew hard again. Swearing, he adjusted his jeans and narrowed his eyes at the woman who, just minutes ago, had acted like a scorching man-eater determined to consume and be consumed.

Kissing her had been a mistake. Knocked sideways by the strange conversation they’d shared about their families, he’d told himself and her it was just that once.

But now he knew how she felt and tasted. Now he knew she was hotter than black pavement in Dallas in August. He had the unsettling feeling that he’d opened Pandora’s box by kissing her.

She’d seemed cool as a cucumber when she’d stepped out of the car and left him with a lingering whisper of her French-perfumed scent, but the way she’d responded to him made him doubt her easy dismissal of her reaction to him.

“Actions speak louder than words, princess,” he muttered. No matter, he told himself, his arousal finally starting to wane. If she was determined to be Miss Cool, then all the better. As long as she didn’t toss him those I-want-you-now looks, then they would be just fine.

Lori climbed the slanting wooden steps of the large farmhouse. The house needed a new coat of paint and a few repairs, she noticed as she felt a board wiggle beneath her foot. As she approached the screen door, however, she smelled the scent of a fresh-baked pie. She inhaled and closed her eyes. Cinnamon, apples… Eager to see Virginia, she knocked on the door.

A moment later, a beautiful young Mexican woman, with long dark hair and a scar that slashed across her cheek, stood at the door. “Good afternoon,” she said and studied Lori for a long moment, her eyes hinting at disapproval. “You must be Lori Granger. I’m Maria. Come in. I will tell Virginia.”

Lori stepped inside the foyer while the woman disappeared to the back of the house. She heard a low voice followed by a peal of delight and immediately smiled at Virginia ’s response.

“Lori,” the older woman said as she rounded the corner, dressed in an apron, with Maria following slowly behind her. “You came! It’s been too long, sweetheart.”

Virgina’s hair contained far more gray than before, and she was thinner. Her eyes held a combination of sadness and weariness, but her wide smile was still full of magic. Lori immediately rushed into her open arms. “ Virginia, I’m so glad to see you. And I’m so sorry about Skip.”

Virginia sighed and gave her a squeeze. “You’ve had a tough time, too, sweetie, with your daddy passing.” She pulled back and looked at Lori. “We’re pleased as punch to have you, but I didn’t quite understand what that Jackson man was telling me. Your visit needs to be confidential? You’re not running from the law, are you?”

Lori laughed. “No, nothing like that. Jackson ’s just being protective.”

“He’s a bodyguard?”

Lori shook her head. “Not exactly. My accountant,” she said.

She noticed Virginia looking past her outside the door. “That’s your accountant?” she said in a lowered voice, and Lori didn’t have to turn around to know that Jackson was climbing the steps of the porch. Lori noticed Maria staring with an assessing expression that made Lori feel, well, weird.

The situation was strange enough, and she didn’t want Virginia or anyone else to pick up on the dynamics, whatever they were, between her and Jackson, so she took the high road of civility. “Virginia and Maria, this is Jackson James. He’s my accountant and advisor. I’m sorry we didn’t give you much notice for our visit, but both of us would like to help while we’re here. And if you don’t have room, I’ll totally understand.”

“Nonsense,” Virginia said. “Of course we have room. We always have room for you. And right now, I can offer you pie.”

Jackson entered the house and Lori introduced him to Virginia and Maria. He greeted each of them. “Thank you for letting us come on such short notice.”

“Lori is always welcome here. We loved her from the first summer she spent here at the ranch. She was great with the horses and the kids.”

“Really,” he said, surprised by the woman’s assessment of Lori. It was tough for him to visualize Lori doing such hard physical labor. “I’m hoping we won’t need to stay long.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. Now, as I was saying,” Virginia said. “The pie is ready. Would you like a piece?”

Jackson inhaled the mouth-watering scent. “I never turn down just-baked pie,” Jackson said as the four of them returned to the kitchen.

Virginia urged Lori and Jackson into kitchen chairs around a small breakfast table. “Do you have any campers?” Lori asked. “Are they out on the horses or resting?”

“We’ll have campers in a couple days,” Virginia said as she served the pie. “I’m low on staff this summer, so you can be sure we’ll be busy. Thank goodness some family members and counselors will come with the campers and serve as helpers.”

“I can help,” Lori offered.

Jackson nearly choked on his pie in surprise.

Virginia ’s eyes rounded with excitement. “That would be fantastic. The campers will love you, and we have some new horses that you will love.”

Jackson watched Lori bite her lip. “I’m a little rusty with the horses. Maybe I could help in the kitchen or with the housekeeping duties.” That made sense, he thought. No heavy lifting for the princess.

Virginia paused, then gave a slow nod. “That will work, too. I just thought you would enjoy working with the horses more.”

“Oh, I’m sure your routine is different now. It will be easier for me to jump right in with helping in the kitchen.”

“Okeydoke,” Virginia said. “Two more hands. Maria, the jackpot arrived at our front door, didn’t it?”

Maria gave a neutral smile. “We’re always grateful for volunteers.”

Maria was no fool, Jackson decided. He suspected the striking Latino woman had already rendered judgment on Lori as useless. Which wasn’t completely true. Even though Lori had been a major pain in his ass, he knew she had a good heart.

“If you have any repairs you need done on the house, I can help with those,” he said to Virginia.

The older woman lifted her hand to her throat. “Oh, stars, you have no idea what you’re offering. I hate to take advantage of you, but I’m desperate enough to do just that. There’s a loose board in the front porch.”

“I noticed that,” he said. “I could probably take care of it this afternoon.”

Virginia beamed. “Well, isn’t this too good to be true? Jackson, you can work on the house, and Lori, Maria can get you started on some casseroles and cutting and chopping of vegetables. We like to do as much ahead of time as we can, since things get so hectic when the kids are here.” She smiled at Jackson. “You want another piece of pie?”

That afternoon, Maria gave Lori the recipe for a chicken-and-stuffing casserole. Lori hit a little snafu when she overlooked the instruction to precook the chicken and chop it into pieces. Not understanding the use of soups, she prepared them according to the instructions on the can. When she pulled the huge casserole out of the oven, it was a mess.

Maria stared at her in chagrin. “You could not read the recipe?” she asked. “You did not see that you are supposed to cook the chicken first? And the soup?” She shook her head and went off in a spate of Spanish that Lori couldn’t interpret word for word. She got the gist, however, that Maria was pissed.

“I’m really sorry,” Lori said. “I’ll pay for the ingredients. I’ll-”

Virginia entered the kitchen, and Maria immediately began talking to the woman in excited Spanish. Virginia looked at the casserole and grimaced, then looked at Lori.

“Carrots,” the older woman said. “We need chopped carrots, potatoes, and onions. And after that, you can snap beans. Maria, why don’t you take some of the horses for a ride?”

Lori meticulously chopped carrots until dinnertime, when Virginia appeared again. “Oh, my, you didn’t get to the potatoes yet, did you?”

Lori felt a sinking sensation at the surprise in the woman’s tone. “Was I supposed to chop them first?”

“No,” Virginia said. “I just thought we might use some of the vegetables for dinner tonight.” Virginia paused. “But you know, it’s so hot, I think sandwiches and chips would be a great idea for dinner.” She squeezed Lori’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, are you sure you wouldn’t rather work with the horses tomorrow?”

“Oh, no. I’ll get faster,” Lori said. “I just haven’t done much cooking lately.” Or ever, she silently added.

Maria swept into the kitchen and glanced at the bowl of carrots. “Carrots? She has only sliced the carrots?”

Virginia gave a determined smile. “I’ve decided on sandwiches for dinner. Everything okay with the horses?”

“All good,” Maria said. “Holt and I took them for rides.”

“Holt?” Lori asked.

“He’s a neighbor who helps part-time when he can. Used to ride the rodeo. He’s great with the horses,” Virginia said. “Maria, let’s put some sandwiches together.”

“I’ll help,” Lori offered.

“That’s sweet. Would you mind setting the table?”

The following morning, Lori was put on housekeeping detail. She dusted and mopped the floors of the two cabins, and cleaned bathrooms and windows. She even vacuumed the curtains the same way she’d seen her housekeeper do. Exhausted by the end of the day, she returned to the main house.

She smelled something delicious baking in the kitchen and walked inside. Jackson sat in a kitchen chair, chatting easily with Maria and Virginia. She felt a twinge of jealousy at how quickly the women had accepted him. Maria shot him a teasing smile, and Lori felt the twinge turn to a stab that went deeper. Frowning at the feeling, she brushed it aside.

Virginia looked up at her and smiled. “There’s our little cleaner. Come on in, sweetheart. The cabins all spick-and-span?”

“Both of them sparkle,” she said, proud of herself for doing a good job.

“Both?” Virginia echoed.

“Both?” Maria repeated. “You only did two of them?”

Lori blinked. “There are more? There were only two when I was here before.”

Maria sighed. “Ay caramba…”

“No, hold on just a minute, Maria,” Virginia said. “Lori is right. We built the other two cabins the spring after she worked here.”

Maria tossed her dish towel aside and met Lori’s gaze. “All right. I will finish the other two cabins and eat my dinner later.”

Lori felt her pride roar to the surface. It was as if that dish towel was actually a gauntlet. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“It will take you all night,” Maria said, shaking her head as she moved away from the counter. “The cabins have to be ready for the campers tomorrow.”

Lori stepped directly in Maria’s path. “I said I would do it, and I will,” she said firmly, then glanced at Virginia. “ Virginia, would you toss me one of those apples? That should get me through.”

“Of course, dear, but you don’t have to-”

“Excuse me, but yes, I do,” Lori said and surprised herself when she caught the apple. Maria made her feel small and inept. That was bad enough, but the fact that she did it in front of Jackson made Lori understand the concept of catfight. Which was crazy. She shouldn’t and didn’t care that Jackson viewed her as vapid and useless. If she kept telling herself that, she would believe it.