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“You must be John’s daughter,” a rawboned, slightly intimidating cowboy drawled. He was tanned from long hours of hard work under the glare of the sun and his eyes, staring at her from the shade beneath the brim of his Stetson, were a light golden brown. Intense and unblinking, they stared at her in an uncompromising appraisal that caused her breath to catch and warned her that she should run now while she had the chance.
“That’s right.” Why did her tongue want to trip all over itself?
His grin was a slash of white against bronzed skin. “He’s proud of you, let me tell you.”
“Is he?” She smiled back, then blushed. This guy was way too old for her and she wasn’t one to flirt, but there was something about him that made her want to linger. “Bliss Cawthorne,” she said boldly, extending her hand and remembering the manners her mother had drummed into her head from the time she was a toddler.
“Lafferty. Mason Lafferty.” He dropped the trunk and covered her soft, small outstretched palm with his bigger callused hand. His fingers were rough, covered with dust and warmer than the breeze that swept through the grassy acres. He tipped his hat and didn’t apologize for the dirt that he left smudged on her skin.
“You work for Dad.” There was something about him that nudged her curiosity, something that set him apart from the rest of the men who called John Cawthorne their boss.
“Most of the time.” He hitched the trunk onto his back and started for the porch.
“And the rest?”
He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her so slowly she felt her knees turn to jelly. “Raisin’ hell, if you believe the stories in town.”
“Should I?” Lugging her suitcase, she struggled to keep up with his long, easy stride.
His gold eyes glinted. “Every word. Hey, don’t carry that—I’ll get it.” He cocked his head toward the bag she carried.
“I can handle it.”
“Can you?”
She knew she was being baited and she flushed. After all, this guy wasn’t a boy; he was a man and he scared her more than a little. “I can handle a lot of things,” she said, tossing her head. Margaret Cawthorne might have taught her daughter to be a lady, but she’d also instilled a fervor in Bliss to carry her own weight and be independent enough not to have to rely on any man, especially not a cowboy.
John walked out onto the porch. “Damned mechanics,” he grumbled, then noticed Mason. “Take the trunk and the rest of her things into her bedroom—down the hall, second door on the right. Next to the bath.”
“I can show him. I know where it is,” Bliss said, feeling the fiery rays of the sun beating against the back of her neck. Heat shimmered in waves across the pastures, and dust, kicked up from the movement of cattle and horses in nearby fields, floated in the air. She was beginning to sweat and her blouse was sticking to her back and her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure everyone within ten feet of her could hear it.
“Good.”
“When you’re finished with the luggage, Lafferty, run down to the machine shed. The combine’s acting up again, according to Corky, and the shop in town is overloaded. No one can look at the machine for three weeks at the earliest. Holy hell, how can you run a ranch like this?” Scowling and grumbling to himself, her father strode across the parking lot toward the machine shed.
Mason’s jaw hardened. He held the screen door open for Bliss. “Your old man is gonna give himself a stroke if he doesn’t calm down a little.”
“It’s just his way,” she said but felt an unspoken tension in the cowboy walking beside her. His muscles were suddenly strung tight, his knuckles showing white around the handle of the trunk.
Hurrying through the cool interior of the house, she bumped shoulders with him a couple of times and nearly tripped over her feet at the contact. Being alone with him was nerve-racking. She reminded herself that he was just one of her father’s hands—a worker on the ranch. Right? So why did she feel instantly that there was something about him, something primitive and sexual, that bothered her and caused her already-flushed skin to break into beads of anxious perspiration? “You can put the trunk in the corner,” she said, opening the door of her room and indicating a spot near the small closet.
“Whatever you say, princess.”
She bristled at the name. “I’m not a princess.”
His lips twitched. “Hmm. Coulda fooled me.” He dropped the trunk on its end and hesitated long enough to make her uncomfortable. There was something in his eyes, something wickedly intriguing that warned her he was the kind of man to avoid—the kind of man a woman in her right mind wouldn’t trust. “Anything else?”
“No, uh, I think I can handle the rest.”
“You sure?” His voice was low and a little raspy, as if he’d breathed too much dust or smoked too many cigarettes.
She wasn’t sure of anything. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”
With a wink that bordered on something far more sexual than she’d ever experienced, he left the room as quickly as he’d come in. She set her suitcase on the bed and opened the window. Suddenly the tiny bedroom seemed airless and hot. In the old mirror over the bureau she caught her reflection and nearly died. Her cheeks were a bright shade of pink, her blond hair wild, her eyes wide with an anticipation she’d never seen before.
The breeze that moved the curtains and filled the room didn’t help much. Nothing did, she came to find out. Whenever she was around Mason, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath or even untangle her thoughts.
* * *
