Expecting...

“No, no, I didn’t know her.”

“Fine woman. Hard worker. Can’t believe she’d run off like that. Shocked us all. Now Joe, nothin’ he could do would shock us.”

Mallory gulped. She wondered when the talk would die down, if ever. Would she always be only a poor replacement for Diane? Always? There was no always. Not for her. She’d be lucky if she lasted the summer, considering the personality of her boss. A summer should give her time to figure out what to do next. Depending on what shape her research was in, and of course what shape she was in. In the mean time she had Diane’s job while Diane had her man.

“Dinner’s at seven,” Tex said. “Hope you’re not on a diet like Diane was.”

So Diane was fat. Or was she thin? Whatever she was, she had something Joe wanted and Mallory didn’t. Strange how fast she had accepted the fact. Much faster than she’d accepted her sister’s taking her boyfriend away. As if she’d had a choice either time. Funny how the shock was wearing off already. And how fast Joe’s classic cowboy face was fading from her memory.

She had not seen any more of her boss, not since he’d told her what the obscenely large salary was, shaken her hand and pointed to a large, richly appointed room he called “the office” in one wing of the sprawling house.

“That’s where we meet every morning. In the meantime...”

Just as she was about to tell him she couldn’t do anything in the meantime except collapse and that she was having second thoughts about being anybody’s housekeeper and especially his, someone yelled to him from outside the house that the vet had arrived, and he disappeared. She staggered to her room and lay on the bed, wondering how she’d ever sleep a wink in the same bed as the woman who’d taken Joe away from her and spoiled her plans.

Yet she did sleep, until dinner. Another weird thing, along with her heightened sensory awareness was her need for an afternoon nap. Of course, staying up late tracking the cosmos could do that to a person. But it never had done that to her before. She felt better after she’d had a shower and changed into khaki pants and a soft cotton shirt.

The pungent smell of Tex’s barbecue wafted through the covered walkway that led to the large, cheerful dining room. When she opened the door, the dozen or more people at the table stopped talking. Heads swerved in her direction. A hush fell over the room. Everyone was staring at her, everyone but her boss. He was busy piling potato salad on his plate. He already knew what she looked like, both conscious and unconscious.

A tall, tanned older man with a sweeping mustache stood and doffed his hat. “I know you must be, but you can’t be our new housekeeper.”

“Why can’t I be?” she asked, sitting in the only vacant chair, next to the dashing older man.

“Much too young and much too pretty. Thought you’d learned your lesson, Zach.”

Zach looked up briefly, just long enough to meet her gaze. If she expected warmth and support, she didn’t get it. There was only a brief flicker of recognition, as if he’d almost forgotten he’d even hired her.

“This is our new housekeeper,” he said briskly. “Mallory, meet the staff.” He proceeded to go around the table, introducing his vet, his mechanic, the buyer, his business manager and so forth until the names and faces all blurred together. Except for Perry, the man who thought she was too young and pretty to be a housekeeper.

“Tell me,” Perry said slanting his head in her direction. “What’s a nice girl like you doing on a ranch like this?”

“Just what Mr. Calhoun said,” she replied, taking a small piece of barbecued brisket from a platter served by a young woman in blue jeans and a braid over one shoulder. “I’m the new housekeeper.” Maybe if she said it often enough she’d start to believe it. I’m the new housekeeper, I’m the new housekeeper, I am the new—

“And what do you think of Mr. Calhoun?” Perry asked over the din of renewed conversation and the clatter of silverware.

“He’s...very decisive,” she said with a brief glance toward the end of the table. “Seems to know what he wants.”

“That he does,” Perry agreed, shaking hot pepper onto his baked potato. “But what he wants is not always what he needs.”

“I see,” she said. But she didn’t see at all. Anyone as rich and successful as Zach Calhoun could surely get anything he wanted or needed. Case in point. He needed a housekeeper, so he’d gotten her, using his forceful personality and an outlandish salary. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been the next hapless female who’d happened to pull up in his driveway for whatever reason. To marry his foreman or deliver a truckload of gravel. It didn’t seem to matter. He was just looking for a warm body.

“I guess you heard what happened to your predecessor?” he asked.

“Do you mean...”

“I mean she ran off with our foreman, and no one even knew they were involved. Talk about the odd couple. It’s the biggest scandal to happen around here in a long time. No one understands why they left, why they had to run off. Why didn’t she just move in with him and stay here and keep her job?”

“I don’t know,” Mallory said. But she did know. It was because Mallory was coming to marry Joe. And he didn’t want to marry her. Not at all. He didn’t want to marry her so much that he took the housekeeper and left a good steady job just to avoid her. And that hurt.

“They’ll never find anyone like Zach to work for,” he observed, filling her water glass for her. “He’s tough but he’s fair. By the way,” he said bending his head so close his mustache tickled her ear. “Has anyone been given Joe’s cabin, do you know? Maybe you could put me on top of the list. Perry’s the name. Perry.”

“I’ll remember,” she said, leaning forward to avoid his hand on the back of her chair. Was it the housekeeper’s job to assign housing? To fend off lecherous old wranglers?

“You’re not worried about filling Diane’s rather large shoes, are you?”

Large shoes. Was that just a saying or did Diane really have big feet? “Well, yes,” she said, “now that you mention it, I am worried. I hear she was quite good at...what she did.”

“Good? She was the best. You had much experience?”

She took a sip from her water glass. “Yes and no,” she hedged.

He smiled as if he saw right through her. As if he knew she’d been hired off the street, or off the floor as it were.

“Yes, our boss appears to have everything,” Perry said, returning to the subject he’d begun. “And he does. Except in his personal life. I’m talking about a wife and a family, of course. You married?”

“No.” She glanced at the man at the end of the table. Up to now she’d avoided looking at him. Afraid of what? That he might have the power to see into her soul? Find out her secret? The man who oozed wealth and self-confidence was at that moment glaring at her. Even down the length of the table she could feel his disapproval. Of what? What had she done but nibble on some barbecued beef and listen to Perry gossip?

The conversation at Zach’s end of the table revolved around topics like shorthorns and Brahmans. So even at dinner he was all business. But he was all macho man, too. In control of his house, his land and his personnel. Except for one renegade ex-foreman and one ex-housekeeper. Was that the reason for the frown on his face? Or was it directed at her personally?

“Does he have a wife and family?” she asked.

“No,” Perry said, stuffing a large piece of beef into his mouth. “That’s my point. What good is all this land and money if you’ve got no one to share it with?”

Leaving Perry’s question hanging in the air, she stared at Zach, wondering if he felt the same way. If he did, there must be a ton of women who would jump at the chance to share this beautiful place. If they could ignore his acerbic personality, his male chauvinist ideas and his domineering manner.

Mrs. Calhoun would have her meals cooked for her, her bed made and acres of wildflowers and stables of horses to call her own. Or half her own. If he could talk an astronomer into being a housekeeper in one half hour, he could certainly talk any other woman into being his wife. If he wanted one. She wondered if he wanted children. She never had. Not until now.

At that precise moment he looked up and caught her staring at him. Their glances met and held for a long minute while the conversation dimmed in the background and the faces around the table faded. She tried to break the contact but she couldn’t. His intense gaze held her captive over bowls of creamed corn and platters of tomatoes. She’d already consented to be his housekeeper. What more did he want with her? Her stomach knotted with nerves and apprehension. She shredded her napkin in her lap without realizing it.

Just as she thought she might have to make an abrupt departure from the table to escape his brilliant blue gaze, his interest in her faded as the maid brought in coffee and plates of freshly baked spice cookies and someone asked Zach if he’d ever found his missing calves.

Before she’d left the dining room, two more people asked if they could have Joe’s cabin. She said she’d see. She’d say anything to get out of there and away from the aura of the presence at the end of the table. But just as she was the last to arrive in the dining room, she was the last to leave. Or next to last. Zach was still at the table, making notes on a paper napkin. Without realizing she was doing it, she held her breath and tiptoed past him.

His arm snaked out and grabbed her hand. “Not so fast.”

“What, what is it?” she gasped.

“Sit down.”

She sat.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.” Her heart was pounding. Not from fear. From apprehension. Anxiety. Misgivings.

He pressed her hands between his rough callused palms. “Your hands are like ice.”

“Cold hands, warm heart,” she said lightly.

“That’s right I remember,” he said deliberately, letting his heated gaze follow the curve of her breasts and linger there. Her face flamed. She tugged at her hands. He held on.

“Just a warning. Stay away from Perry. He’s a lech. Unless you want to end up like your predecessor.”

“I don’t intend to run away with one of your staff,” she said coolly. Little did he know she was not the type to inspire such passion in anyone. The brief affair with Joe was her one-and-only fling. His interest in her had so surprised and flattered her she’d lost her normal good sense. Of course she could blame the three beers or the music or the fact that it was the night of her twenty-eighth birthday and she was still a virgin. A reluctant virgin. There was all that. And there was more. The need to prove she could attract a man like Joe.

“That’s reassuring. Who do you intend to run away with?”

“No one. By the way,” she said, looking down at his broad, work-hardened hands that still clasped her pale slender fingers. “Am I on duty twenty-four hours a day?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your stargazing.”

“They’re not stars, they’re nebulae. Clouds made of gas and smoke and...”

“Whatever.”

She pushed her chair out from the table. Enough of this patronizing boor.

With a loud scraping sound he pulled the chair with her in it back to the table and said, “I’m not through with you yet.”

Two

He poured her a cup of coffee from the urn on the table, leaned back in his chair and observed her through narrowed eyes.

She shook her head and set the cup aside.

“How are you going to stay awake for the Milky Way if you don’t get some caffeine in your system?” he asked.

“I’m not staying awake for the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a galaxy, made up of stars, of which we are all a part, the nebulae, however—”

“Are clouds made of gas and smoke.”

“And dust Very good,” she said with grudging admiration.

“I took notes. Thought there might be a quiz,” he said. “Here’s an idea. Instead of studying those nebulae of yours, why don’t you find a new comet and name it after yourself? Mallory Phillips. It has a nice ring to it.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. The way he rolled her name around on his tongue made a shiver go up her spine.

“Tea?” he asked.

She capitulated. “All right.” If she wasn’t going to get away from him anytime soon she might as well have a cup of tea.

She thought he’d have someone bring it. Instead he went to the kitchen himself and came back five minutes later with a cup of fragrant, passion peach.

She eyed him over her steaming cup. “Don’t you have...things to do?”

“I have to talk to you. About avoiding the men here.”

“I don’t see how I can do that and still do my job,” she said. “What is my job, by the way? I know, housekeeper. But what does that mean, actually, besides supervising? Supervising who, what, how? How am I supposed to supervise people who know more than I do? Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“You’re just nervous,” he said. “It’s a great idea.”

He would say that since it was his idea.

“Not just supervising...coordinating,” he corrected.

“All right, coordinating. What do I coordinate?”

“Everything. Everybody. You’ll learn on the job. You’ll ask people who’ve been here awhile. You’ll find Diane’s household records. Learn where she ordered supplies and groceries and how she assigned housing and who does what around here. Not all at once. As you go along. The important thing is that you not...”

“I know. Run away with your foreman. Don’t worry, it’s not likely to happen again. Not to me, anyway. I’ve never been... As you said, I’m a day late.”

Zach rubbed his hand over his forehead. “You’re not the only one. Day two and the agency still can’t find anybody for me to even interview. How do they expect me to run a thousand-acre ranch without a foreman?” he asked.

“Isn’t two days a little short notice?” she asked. “If you’re so impatient why don’t you just wait for the next man to pull up to your house and hire him?”

“Like I did you? I’ll remind you that I thought they’d sent you. And you did nothing to convince me otherwise.”

“I fainted,” she said taking a sip of the soothing, hot beverage. “That should have tipped you off.”

“Good point. Housekeepers don’t faint. At least Diane never did.”

“Diane this and Diane that. I’m not Diane. I’m not even a housekeeper.”

“You are now,” he said flatly. “It can’t be that hard. But a foreman is another matter. I want someone who’s had experience running a large ranch. They’re out there, I know they are. I just can’t seem to get my hands on one. I don’t expect to get someone like Joe. Whatever his character flaws, he was damned good at what he did.”

Mallory thought of the night she’d met him. His handsome face, his smooth talk, his expertise on the tiny dance floor, plying her with drinks, seducing her with words as well as action in that small hotel room across the road from the bar. Yes, he was damned good at what he did. And she was an admirer, and a willing participant. She couldn’t blame Joe. She’d gone willingly, like a moth to the flame.

“What’s the matter?” Zach said, studying her flushed face.

She picked up her cup and took a large gulp of tea. “Nothing.”

“Were you in love with him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why were you going to marry him?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said.

“Try me.”

She brushed her hand across her cheek. “I don’t know. I mean...maybe I was in love. I know, people don’t usually get married unless...unless they have a good reason. But what is love, anyway? What does it feel like?” She wished she had been in love. She wished that had been the reason for those wedding plans. And love would have excused her behavior in that hotel room. She really did want to know about love. Just because Zach wasn’t married didn’t mean he didn’t have the answer. Anyone who looked as worldly-wise as he did and was as rich and good-looking as he was had probably been in love dozens of times.

“Damned if I know,” he said, rocking his chair back against the wall and folding his arms behind his head. “You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t think you’ve answered my question yet. If you didn’t know if you were in love, why did you want to get married?”

She set her cup down with a thud. “That’s none of your business.” She’d had all the questions she could handle for one day. If she could summon the energy to walk out, she would. But right now she was drained.

Zach sat at the table, crumpling the napkin with the formula for feed he’d scribbled on it. He looked at her cup and noted the imprint of her lips on the rim. If she wasn’t sitting there staring off into space he would have picked it up and held it to his mouth. To taste passion peach blended with her own elusive scent.

He still didn’t get it. Why in the hell would she want to many a promiscuous stud like Joe if she didn’t love him? Then suddenly he did get it. Because he was a stud, of course. Even Diane couldn’t resist him. So why should a beautiful woman like Mallory?

Tex came in and set a fresh pot of coffee in front of them.

“More tea, Ms. Mallory?” he asked.

She shook her head. She looked like she wanted to leave but was too tired to move. To break the silence Zach turned to Tex. “You’ve been married, Tex, you know anything about love?” Zach asked.

Tex wiped his hands on his apron. “I know this much. It makes the world go round.”

“Thanks,” Zach said drily.

“What’re you asking me for? You been married yourself, boss.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Once you’ve been in love, you never forget how it was,” Tex said.

“Then I couldn’t have been in love, because I have forgotten,” Zach said, drumming his knuckles on the table. “All I remember is the shock when she told me she was leaving.”

Mallory looked up and met his gaze. There was sympathy in her dark eyes. And he knew he’d said too much. He didn’t want sympathy from anybody, especially from a woman he didn’t even know.

“Well,” he said, “it’s been a long day. You’re probably tired.” If she didn’t take the hint that it was time for her to leave, he’d be surprised.

But she didn’t, and he was surprised to hear her say to Tex, “I think I will have another cup of tea.”

The cook smiled and took her cup to refill it.

“How long have you had the ranch?” Mallory asked.

He paused. He didn’t really want to talk about himself. But he could hardly ignore a direct question, either. “My uncle died seven or eight years ago. But I’ve lived here since I can remember. I was about ten when my mother dumped me here and took off.”

“Dumped you?” she asked.

“Call it what you want. I don’t blame her for taking off. As a single mother she was at the end of her rope. It hurt at the time, but leaving me here with my uncle was the best thing she could have done. For her and for me. I know everybody doesn’t feel this way, or they wouldn’t keep quitting, but I love this place. Better than anything.”

“Better than anybody?” she asked.

“Yeah, why? There’s nothing wrong with that. The only thing that’s wrong is that I can’t run it alone. I depend on others. I need good help. Yesterday I lost two of the best.”

“Today you replaced one of ’em,” Tex said from the doorway, nodding at Mallory. How long had he been standing there? Not that it mattered, he knew more about Zach than anybody.

“Did I do the right thing?” Zach asked with a wry glance at Mallory.

“She looks good to me,” the cook said.

“She looks tired to me,” Zach said, noting her drooping eyelids.

“You’re right,” Mallory said with a yawn. “She’s going to bed. Good night.” She rose from the table, leaving her tea untouched, and walked out the dining room door.

“Pretty little thing,” Tex noted, crossing his arms across his ample waist.

Little? He hadn’t picked her up off the floor and carried her across the room. “Doesn’t have any experience,” Zach said, pouring Tex a cup of coffee.

“Then why...”

“I don’t know,” Zach said. But he knew why he’d hired her. It was because he couldn’t send her away. Because there was something in those limpid brown eyes that told him she needed help, a place to go. It was the tears that she fought to hold in check that called forth his grudging admiration, and the way she handled the shock of hearing Joe was gone. By fainting, yes. But when she recovered, with fortitude and grim determination. Those things showed her mettle.

“I’m running a business, you know,” Zach reminded himself as well as Tex. “Not a home for the lovelorn or an observatory for astronomers.”

“Who?” Tex asked, sitting in a chair halfway down the table.

Zach took a swallow of hot coffee. “She’s an astronomer,” he said.

“She gonna read our horoscope?” Tex asked.

“Afraid not,” Zach said, not wanting to go into the difference between astronomy and astrology. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody she’s not a housekeeper, but you’re not just anybody. You’ve been with me for the last nine years. Making food that keeps a lot of guys around when they might have had reason to leave.”

“Thank you, boss,” Tex said.

“You’re welcome.”

“They can look into the future, you know,” Tex said.

“Who can?”

“Astrologers. They can tell if money or romance is in your future,” Tex said.

“I don’t need an astrologer to tell me that romance is not in my future. I tried it once. It didn’t work.”

“Maybe it’s time you tried again,” Tex suggested.

Zach did a double take. He looked into the cook’s friendly dark eyes. “Me, try again? Have you been into the cooking sherry?” Zach asked. “As if I didn’t have enough problems. As if I didn’t have goals which don’t include anything but raising the best beef cattle in the state. Now you want me to go out looking for romance?”

“Not go out looking. Just, you know, don’t fight it.”

Zach stared at the man. In all-these years he’d never had a personal talk like this with him. Now all of a sudden Tex was talking to him like a Dutch uncle. Though Zach’s real uncle had never talked like this, either. He was a cool, tough rancher who hadn’t known what to say to the boy he’d raised.

“If she’s not a housekeeper, why’d you hire her?” Tex asked.

“I don’t know.” Zach raked his hand through his hair. “I was desperate. I thought she’d been sent.”

“Maybe she was,” Tex suggested. “By the angels.”

“I meant by the agency.” He didn’t say that he’d had a strange, irrational urge to protect her. Because when he heard she’d fallen for the likes of Joe, he somehow knew he had to keep her from falling for the next randy cowboy who came along.

“Maybe it was a mistake hiring her,” Zach said. “I’m probably gonna have to let her go.”

Tex frowned and stood up. “Don’t do anything till you read your horoscope tomorrow,” he warned. “Or you’ll be sorry.”

The next morning Mallory stood at the entrance of the walk-in closet and realized she had nothing in her wardrobe that vaguely resembled what a housekeeper would wear. Couldn’t the super-wonderful Diane have left behind one housekeeper outfit? One powder-blue polyester shirt and pants would have done it, preferably with an elastic waist. Along with a set of instructions as to how to be a housekeeper. But the closet had been cleaned out. And Mallory’s clothes were either trim skirts she’d worn while teaching that didn’t seem to fit anymore or warm pants for stargazing. So she dug out a pair of baggy cotton shorts from the bottom of her duffel bag and a T-shirt to wear to the ten o’clock meeting.

Not that it mattered. He wasn’t there.

“He’s going to town to raise a little hell with the job agency,” Mike the mechanic told her. “Feels he’s not getting enough attention from them. Said he’s not coming back till they find him a foreman. Can’t run a ranch without a foreman. Boss’s getting impatient. He’s got no foreman. So, no meeting today.”

“But...” She looked around in desperation. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to do it? She thought he’d brief her today.