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The boy flinched but the man held his impassive look as he continued to stare her down with a hostile glare.
In the awkward silence that followed, she moved to take Hannah away from the boy and this time, he carefully released the baby to her. Hannah, bless her, had slept through the entire encounter. Janet turned toward the front door, as they were being given no option to stay, and prepared to leave where they obviously weren’t wanted—not that she really wanted to stay under the roof of the insolent rancher.
But now, as the moment for departure was imminent, for some crazy reason, she stalled, feeling almost as if she were being denied something momentous. Refusing to consider the elder McIntyre and the riot of emotions that were bouncing around in her belly, she glanced at the boy who was watching her in return. As she studied him, she had an inexplicable feeling that she was about to lose a small part of her soul—as if someone had taken her child away before she’d ever been given a chance to love it. So crazy, so insane. She didn’t even know the boy.
She forced herself to smile at the kid, very afraid that her heart was in her eyes. Realizing she’d probably never see him again and not understanding the acute sense of loss the entire situation had produced, she said simply, “Remember, kiddo—ain’t isn’t a word.”
With that, she took a deep breath, walked through the living room and out the front door without another look.
****
Jeff heard the front door close with a muted ‘click’ and then turned to fully face his son, putting his hands on his hips, very aware that the scene had put him off balance. “What the hell, Zach? Would you have hired her if I hadn’t walked in?”
His son shrugged his shoulders as if unconcerned. “Don’t know. Depended on how much I liked her sandwiches.”
Jeff shook his head. “We’re not going to hire a housekeeper just because you don’t want to make your own damn sandwich.”
“They looked poor, Dad,” Zach argued.
Poor? Jeff hadn’t noticed—he hadn’t been able to get past the blonde hair and porcelain skin—of both the mother and her baby. He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, scattering ice crystals across the floor. “You don’t need to worry about that woman, I promise you. It won’t take her five minutes before she has some man taking care of her—the kid won’t even slow her down.”
“What do you mean?” his boy asked, although there was a glimmer of knowledge—and anger—in his eyes that made Jeff uncomfortable. His kid was growing up too damn fast—forming his own opinions more quickly as he got older.
At Zach’s question, somewhere between knowing and needing more of an explanation, Jeff knew he wasn’t ready to get into a convoluted load of crap about a woman he wanted nothing more to do with. “Nothing, never mind. Have you done your homework?”
He was met with an exasperated look. “Of course.”
“Are you really hungry?” Jeff stood and studied his kid, feeling a moment of guilt. Parenting was damn hard. Parenting a motherless boy was exceedingly hard when he had no ‘feminine side’ whatsoever.
“I’m always hungry,” his son shot back—and Jeff knew the boy was speaking the truth. The kid was growing like a weed and he could barely keep up with making sure the boy was well fed.
It wasn’t a question of money—they had plenty of it. It was the fact that there wasn’t any domestic help to be had for miles around. They’d gone through the few women in the county who’d wanted the job a while back, but none of them seemed to work out for long. As his son had pointed out, they’d given up a couple of years ago when the last one had left to help her daughter in Dallas and they’d never been able to find a replacement.
Jeff had finally given up looking altogether and they’d been playing it by ear ever since. He knew he was damn lucky Zach was a good kid—even though Mrs. Rigsby, the grocer’s wife, had politely pointed out to Jeff on numerous occasions that if he’d stop ‘cursing’ in front of Zach, then Zach wouldn’t have picked up the same bad habit.
He let out an aggravated sigh. There was only so much he could do—the fact that his son had the vocabulary of a sailor was the last thing he was concerned with. The burden of single parenthood wasn’t anything he’d even remotely considered when he’d held Zach in his arms for the first time. But six years after that—his life as he’d known it had come to a tortured, screeching halt—and truthfully, he didn’t know how they’d survived on their own for this long.
Jeff was about to give the kid a choice between canned chili and canned stew when a knock came from the front door. Fuck. Really? Now what?
Not taking the time to take his boots off before he stomped across the living room floor, he pulled the front door open and looked down. The woman, who truthfully was little more than a girl herself, clutched the baby to her chest as she stood shivering in the cold. “My car won’t start.” Her eyes adamantly refused to meet his, sending a provocative rush of challenge through his system that he understood should be heeded as a warning.
Well, great. Double-fuck. Tamping down the surge of upset that her delicate beauty was causing, Jeff took a look at the ancient vehicle in his circular driveway and knew it was a wonder the car had gotten this far.
Now what the hell was he supposed to do? Even though the calendar said it was spring, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. There was a treacherous ice storm raging outside, it was getting late, the sun was already setting in the west. He sure as shit wasn’t going to go outside in all that crap and work on a vehicle that, by his estimation, should have been scrapped a decade ago.
With little to no patience, with a jerk of his head, he motioned for her to enter.
Without meeting his eyes, she stepped just inside the entrance as he quickly shut the door against the temperature that was already well below freezing.
The young woman cuddled the baby who was now making noises as if she was about to blow. The girl—Janet—still wouldn’t look at him, almost like he was contagious or something, and it was enough to irritate him further. “Can I use your phone?” she asked as she stared straight in front of her, standing as stiff as a board.
“What the hell for?” he snapped, feeling more out of sorts than usual.
Her lips clamped tightly together before answering, “I need a taxi.”
He let out a disgusted laugh and questioned sarcastically, “I’m sorry—a what?”
“A taxi—a cab,” she clarified in a stiff little voice that made him want to toss her in a chair and cage her within his arms and explain exactly what it meant to live in the middle of God’s country. Damn good thing she had amazing looks, because she didn’t seem to have a working brain cell in her head.
He clenched his jaw and tried to rein it in. He really did—but his hands were itching to get a hold of her but he knew he couldn’t touch her, and that only set him off more so. “Darlin’, did you happen to take a look at the size of the town you passed through to get here?”
At his tone, which admittedly held a slight touch of irritation, she snapped her face toward his and narrowed her eyes, as if he’d committed a gross infraction. As they stared at each other with undisputed hostility, a river of unwanted testosterone fueled his bloodstream and he admitted to himself exactly why he didn’t want to offer her a job or even give her a chance to prove that she was capable. And it wasn’t because his cock was screaming at him to let it at her. That wasn’t the reason. Not exactly.
He’d gotten over the guilt of fucking other women long ago. All those years ago, after his wife had died, he’d had zero interest in other women. He and Bonnie had grown up together in Redwood Falls—he’d known her as long as he could remember and he’d loved her—they’d been a team. Until her death, he’d never even slept with another woman. He’d always been faithful, and after she’d died, he’d never had the time or the inclination; her death had been a vicious blow that had shaken his stability.
At first he hadn’t much cared if he could perform with other women or not—he?
?d still woken up every morning with a raging hard-on, even though his interest in women was nil. But as time wore on, the urge to know if he’d lost the power to function as a man seemed like something he needed to know.
So, the first time, he’d left Zach with a neighbor and driven to DFW. He’d checked into a hotel and gone down to the bar and promptly gotten shit-faced. He’d picked up the first woman he saw, took her to his room and fucked her—just once—just to prove he could. And then he’d sent her on her way and locked himself in the bathroom where he’d violently vomited his guts out.
But that had been a long time ago and many nameless, faceless women since. He’d never let any of them get close to him—why would he? He had a son to raise, a ranch to take care of. He had responsibilities that precluded looking for a new relationship—not that he’d wanted one. And it was damn easier that way. Women had an annoying habit of disappearing on you when you needed them most.
Who the hell knew who his own mother had been? She’d never been around, the woman had displayed zero staying power.
And by dying, his wife had demonstrated that you couldn’t count on anybody but yourself.
He damn sure didn’t need a housekeeper who was raising her own kid when she was little more than a kid herself.
How the hell would that help him?
He didn’t know this woman—he didn’t know her child or her circumstances or anything about her. So why the fuck did he feel torn about the reason he wasn’t hiring her? The answer to that question was a simple one, really. Even though his goddamn cock was as hard as a rock, and had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, his hesitation to hire her wasn’t because his insides were screaming to fuck her—it was because they were screaming to fuck her again and again.
And that shit had never happened to him, not once since he’d lost his wife. When jacking off proved insufficient, he’d made the drive to Fort Worth and found a woman to screw—once. And never had he deviated from that course—never had a desire to deviate from that course. He’d never wanted any one single woman more than once. That was his choice and had become his mode of operation.
