The Way To A Rancher's Heart

“Could I crank up the rototiller and plow up the garden for Annie?”

Hunkered down beside the engine he was working on, Jase glanced up at Clay’s question, then frowned and turned his attention back to the spark plug he was adjusting. “You’ve got chores to do.”

“But afterwards?” Clay persisted. “It wouldn’t take me long and it’ll take her forever to clean out all those weeds using just a hoe.”

“There’s more important work that needs to be done than tilling a garden.”

“Like what?”

At the frustration he heard in his son’s voice, Jase dropped the wrench to his knee and glanced up, his frown deepening. “Like the fence that needs mending down in the bottom. The new calves I hauled in last night that need feeding and watering. The well house that needs painting.”

Ducking his head, Clay scuffed the toe of his boot at the loose hay in the alleyway. “There’s always work that needs doing around here,” he mumbled.

Jase pushed his hands against his knees and rose. “And there always will be,” he said, tossing the wrench to the workbench, “so long as you complain about your chores instead of just doing them.”

“I’m not complaining,” Clay argued. “I just wanted to help Annie out.”

“If the new nanny wants a garden, then she’ll have to do the work herself.”

“You won’t let me help her because you don’t like her.”

Jase dug through the tools, reluctant to admit there might be some truth in his son’s accusation. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. But we like her. She’s nice. And she’s really funny, too. She’s always saying stuff or doing stuff that makes us laugh.”

Yeah, Jase thought, keeping his back to his son. He’d noticed those qualities in her, too. As well as a few others. “Whether she’s nice or not, isn’t the point. Getting your chores done is.”

Clay’s voice took on a pleading tone. “Don’t run her off, Dad. Please? We like her.”

Jase spun to look at his son. “Run her off? Where’d you get a crazy notion like that?”

Clay lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. But if you’re mean to her, she won’t want to stay around here long.”

Which might be best for them all, Jase affirmed silently, then narrowed a suspicious eye at his son. “You wouldn’t have a crush on the new nanny, would you?”

Heat flamed on Clay’s cheeks. “Heck no! She’s way too old for me.”

Jase turned back to the workbench. “You wouldn’t be the first male to fall head over bootheels for an older woman. She’s young and fairly attractive.”

“Fairly attractive?” Clay echoed. “Dad, she’s a hottie!”

Jase angled his head to look at his son, his brow furrowing. “Hottie?”

“Well, yeah,” Clay said, his cheeks turning a brighter red. “A looker. You know…a babe.”

Shocked to discover that his son was aware of the finer points of the opposite sex, Jase picked up a wrench, and began to clean it. “You shouldn’t be noticing things like that,” he said gruffly.

Chase snorted a laugh. “Shoot. I’d have be to blind not to notice.”

Irritated by his son’s obvious attraction to the nanny, but unsure why, Jase gave his chin a jerk toward the door. “Best get after those chores.”

Clay stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled dejectedly.

Jase angled his head to watch his son pull the feed bucket from its nail on the wall and noticed for the first time the slight swell of muscles on the boy’s arms, the length of his stride as he headed for the barn door.

Frowning, he stared after him, wondering what had happened to the pint-size kid with the gangly legs and the too-long arms. The one who had always claimed girls were stupid.

The one who had once looked up at his daddy with hero worship in his eyes.

Jase had never considered his house small. Fact was, his home was a spacious two-story built by his parents prior to his own birth, and could adequately accommodate a family of ten or more without putting a hardship on anyone in the house.

But ever since the new nanny’s arrival, his house seemed to have shrunk to the size of a cracker box, as had the rest of his ranch. He couldn’t take a step without running into her. Literally.

He couldn’t count the number of times he’d bumped into her in the house or when stepping out of the barn, which invariably led to physical contact of some description. A hand on her arm to steady her, or one of her hands braced against his chest to prevent him from mowing her down on those occasions when he’d round a corner unaware of her presence.

And those brief, physical contacts were beginning to get on his nerves.

He’d known he wasn’t going to like having a stranger in his house. He’d known, too, that having one who was so young and who was…well…such a hottie as his son had described her, might create a problem or two. But he hadn’t been prepared for the amount of time he would waste thinking about her instead of working, wondering where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing.

As far as he’d been able to determine, her wardrobe consisted of cutoff jeans, tank tops and other equally revealing articles of clothing. If that wasn’t distracting enough, he’d discovered she had a habit of humming while she worked that never failed to draw his gaze…and usually to a part of her anatomy that he had no business looking at.

And tonight was no exception.

With the kids already in bed for the night, he and Annie had the downstairs to themselves. And, though he kept his face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading, he was painfully aware of her exact location, which was, at the moment, less than five feet from his recliner and the tips of his boots. A laundry basket at her side, she sat on the floor folding towels…and humming an irritatingly cheerful little tune.

She glanced up, caught him staring and cocked her head, a questioning smile curving her lips. He quickly ducked his head behind the paper again and flipped the page, pretending to be engrossed in the day’s news.

After a moment, he worked up the courage to peek over the top of the newspaper again and caught her just as she rocked up on one hip to stretch to place a folded towel onto the growing stack at her side. At the movement, the hem of her shorts crawled higher on her leg, revealing the thin, white elastic band of her panties and a peek of the lighter-toned skin on her rump that the sun hadn’t seen. A low moan rose in his throat, as he stared, all but strangled by the sight.

“Did you say something?”

He snapped his gaze to hers, unaware that he’d let the sound escape. He jerked the paper back in front of his face to hide the heat crawling up his neck. ‘No,” he mumbled. “I…I was just commenting on the weather report for tomorrow. Supposed to be in the high eighties again.”

“Eighties,” she repeated and sank back on her elbows with a long-suffering sigh. “Hard to believe it’s only March. I can’t imagine what the temperatures will be by the time summer gets here.”

If the temperatures proved to be anything like the heat currently registering in his body, Jase couldn’t imagine, either.

Aware of the uncomfortable swell in his jeans, he knew he’d best leave while he was still able to walk.

She glanced up as he rose. “Are you going to bed?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” he growled and pivoted quickly, heading for his room.

“Sweet dreams,” she called after him.

Yeah, right, he thought irritably. As if his dreams would be anything but X-rated, an affliction he could trace directly back to the day he’d arrived home and found the new nanny in his house.

Annie knew she had a let-me-kiss-it-and-make-it-better tendency that had gotten her into trouble more than once over the years. But knowing that about herself didn’t stop her from trying to think of ways to resolve the problems she saw building in the Rawley household.

In the week since Jase’s return home, she had watched Tara go from a talkative and spirited young girl to a sullen-faced, headed-for-trouble teenager, who spent more time in her room than she did with her family. While Clay, on the other hand, had metamorphosed from an easygoing, if a bit shy, teenaged boy into a bundle of tightly wound nerves who jumped at the slightest noise, as if he expected a bomb to go off at any minute. And, Rachel, bless her heart, who had tagged Annie’s every step since Annie’s arrival, soaking up every smile sent her way, every bit of praise, had begun to cling to Annie’s legs as if she expected Annie to disappear, leaving her all alone.

Though Annie tried to find another explanation for the sudden changes in the children’s behavior, she could find nothing to attribute them to other than their father’s return, a realization that both saddened and frustrated her.

Not having a family of her own, Annie knew the value of familial relationships and hated to see Jase and his children not taking advantage of all they had to offer each other. But what could she do to wake them up to what all they were missing?

“You’re not God,” she reminded herself as she checked her camera for film. “You’re just the nanny.”

Hoping to find some subjects or scenes to photograph that would take her mind off the Rawleys’ problems, she slipped her camera strap over her head and headed outdoors.

Jase stepped inside the barn, paused a moment to let his eyes adjust to the sudden change in light, then headed straight for his workbench. Finding the tool he needed to adjust the carburetor on his truck, he curled his fingers around it, then paused, listening, when he heard a rustling sound above. He glanced up at the rafters that supported the hayloft, then swore, dropping his head and blinking furiously when dust and bits of hay showered down on his face.

Dragging an arm across his eyes, he rammed the wrench into his back pocket and strode for the ladder to the loft, muttering under his breath, “If that damn skunk is back again…”

He climbed the ladder and poked his head through the narrow opening that led to the loft, glancing around. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he carefully navigated the last few steps, trying to keep his movements as quiet as possible, so as not to frighten the skunk. It would be just his luck to get sprayed by the varmint, he thought irritably.

Tiptoeing, he made his way along the narrow pathway created by the tall stacks of baled hay he’d stored there the previous summer, peering into the shadowed crevices. When he reached the end without finding a sign of the critter, he started back, but stopped when he heard a soft whirring sound.

Frowning, he turned and retraced his steps, then paused, listening again. Sure that the sound had come from behind the last row of hay, he wedged himself into the space between the hay and the barn wall, and edged his way to the end, silently cursing the loft’s oppressive heat that had his shirt sticking to his skin. When he reached the opposite end, he peered out…and nearly choked at the sight that greeted him. Annie lay sprawled on her stomach on the loft floor, her bare feet kicked up in the air, holding a camera before her face.

“What the hell are you doing!”

“Sshh!” she hissed, flapping a warning hand behind her.

Scowling, he stooped to keep from bumping his head on the low rafters and moved to hunker down at her side. He followed the direction of the camera lens to the far corner of the loft where dust motes danced a slow waltz in a slanted beam of sunlight.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured as he met the unblinking scrutiny of a mama cat who lay curled on a busted bale of hay.

Easing down to his hips, he drew up his knees, dropped his forearms over them and watched, enchanted by the squirming mass of kittens that suckled greedily at the mama cat’s swollen teats. The camera continued to click and whir at his ear, recording the event, frame by frame.

A hand grasped his and he glanced up, surprised to discover that Annie had risen. Smiling, she pressed a finger to her lips to silence him, then tugged him to his feet and led him back through the tunnel of hay.

When she reached the loft’s opening, she released his hand to grasp the ladder’s braces and grinned up at him as she started down. “Wasn’t that just the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”

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