One Of A Kind

She finished her shower, dried off, and changed into new clothes so that she could start cleaning up the floors where she’d tracked mud. Despite her complaints, Hettie would help. She didn’t really mind housework. Neither did Janie, although her late mother would be horrified if she could see her only child on the floor with a scrub brush alongside Hettie’s ample figure.

Janie helped with everything, except cooking. Her expertise in the kitchen was, to put it mildly, nonexistent. But, she thought, brightening, that was the next thing on her list of projects. She was undergoing a major self-improvement. First she was going to learn ranching—even if it killed her—and then she was going to learn to cook.

She wished this transformation had been her idea, but actually, it had been Marilee’s. The other girl had told her, in confidence, that she’d been talking to Leo and Leo had told her flatly that the reason he didn’t notice Janie was that she didn’t know anything about ranching. She was too well-dressed, too chic, too sophisticated. And the worst thing was that she didn’t know anything about cooking, either, Marilee claimed. So if Janie wanted to land that big, hunky fish, she was going to have to make some major changes.

It sounded like a good plan, and Marilee had been her friend since grammar school, when the Morgan family had moved next door. So Janie accepted Marilee’s advice with great pleasure, knowing that her best friend would never steer her wrong. She was going to stay home—not go back to college—and she was going to show Leo Hart that she could be the sort of woman who appealed to him. She’d work so hard at it, she’d have to succeed!

Not that her attempts at riding a horse were anything to write home about, she had to admit as she mopped her way down the long wooden floor of the hall. But she was a rancher’s daughter. She’d get better with practice.

She did keep trying. A week later, she was making biscuits in the kitchen—or trying to learn how—when she dropped the paper flour bag hard on the counter and was dusted from head to toe with the white substance.

It would have to be just that minute that her father came in the back door with Leo in tow.

“Janie?” her father exclaimed, wide-eyed.

“Hi, Dad!” she said with a big grin. “Hi, Leo.”

“What in blazes are you doing?” her father demanded.

“Putting the flour in a canister,” she lied, still smiling.

“Where’s Hettie?” he asked.

Their housekeeper was hiding in the bedroom, supposedly making beds, and trying not to howl at Janie’s pitiful efforts. “Cleaning, I believe,” she said.

“Aunt Lydia not around?”

“Playing bridge with the Harrisons,” she said.

“Bridge!” her father scoffed. “If it isn’t bridge, it’s golf. If it isn’t golf, it’s tennis… Is she coming over today to go over those stocks with me or not?” he persisted, because they jointly owned some of his late wife’s shares and couldn’t sell them without Lydia’s permission. If he could ever find the blasted woman!

“She said she wasn’t coming over until Saturday, Dad,” Janie reminded him.

He let out an angry sigh. “Well, come on, Leo, I’ll show you the ones I want to sell and let you advise me. They’re in my desk… damn bridge! I can’t do a thing until Lydia makes up her mind.”

Leo gave Janie a curious glance but he kept walking and didn’t say another word to her. Minutes later, he left—out the front door, not the back.

Janie’s self-improvement campaign continued into the following week with calf roping, which old John was teaching her out in the corral. Since she could now loop the rope around a practice wooden cow with horns, she was progressing to livestock.

She followed John’s careful instruction and tossed her loop over the head of the calf, but she’d forgotten to dig her heels in. The calf hadn’t. He jerked her off her feet and proceeded to run around the ring like a wild thing, trying to get away from the human slithering after him at a breakneck pace.

Of course, Leo would drive up next to the corral in time to see John catch and throw the calf, leaving Janie covered in mud. She looked like a road disaster.

This time Leo didn’t speak. He was too busy laughing. Janie couldn’t speak, either, her mouth was full of mud. She gave both men a glare and stomped off toward the back door of the house, trailing mud and unspeakable stuff, fuming the whole while.

A bath and change of clothes improved her looks and her smell. She was resigned to finding Leo gone when she got out, so she didn’t bother to dress up or put on makeup. She wandered out to the kitchen in jeans and a loose long-sleeved denim shirt, with her hair in a lopsided ponytail and her feet bare.

“You’ll step on something sharp and cripple yourself,” Hettie warned, turning from the counter where she was making rolls, her ample arms up the elbows in flour.

“I have tough feet,” Janie protested with a warm smile. She went up and hugged Hettie hard from behind, loving the familiar smells of freshly washed cotton and flour that seemed to cling to her. Hettie had been around since Janie was six. She couldn’t imagine life without the gray-haired, blue-eyed treasure with her constantly disheveled hair and worried expression. “Oh, Hettie, what would we do without you?” she asked on a sigh, and closed her eyes.

“Get away, you pest,” Hettie muttered, “I know what you’re up to… Janie Brewster, I’ll whack you!”

But Janie was already out of reach, dangling Hettie’s apron from one hand, her green eyes dancing with mischief.

“You put that back on me or you’ll get no rolls tonight!” Hettie raged at her.

“All right, all right, I was only kidding,” Janie chuckled. She replaced the apron around Hettie’s girth and was fastening it when she heard the door open behind her.

“You stop teaching her these tricks!” Hettie growled at the newcomer.

“Who, me?” Leo exclaimed with total innocence.

Janie’s hands fumbled with the apron. Her heart ran wild. He hadn’t left. She’d thought he was gone, and she hadn’t bothered with her appearance. He was still here, and she looked like last year’s roast!

“You’ll drop that apron, Janie,” Leo scolded playfully.

Janie glanced at him as she retied the apron. “You can talk,” she chided. “I hear your housekeepers keep quitting because you untie aprons constantly! One kept a broom handle!”

“She broke it on my hard head,” he said smugly. “What are you making, Hettie?”

“Rolls,” she said. She glanced warily at Leo. “I can’t make biscuits. Sorry.”

He gave her a hard glare. “Just because I did something a little offbeat…”

“Carried that little chef right out of his restaurant, with him kicking and screaming all the way, I heard,” Hettie mused, eyes twinkling.

“He said he could bake biscuits. I was only taking him home with me to let him prove it,” Leo said belligerently.

“That’s not what he thought,” Hettie chuckled. “I hear he dropped the charges…?”

“Nervous little guy,” Leo said, shaking his head. “He’d never have worked out, anyway.” He gave her a long look. “You sure you can’t bake a biscuit? Have you ever tried?”

“No, and I won’t. I like working here,” she said firmly.

He sighed. “Just checking.” He peered over her shoulder fondly. “Rolls, huh? I can’t remember when I’ve had a homemade roll.”

“Tell Fred to invite you to supper,” Hettie suggested.

He glanced at Janie. “Why can’t she do it?”

Janie was tongue-tied. She couldn’t think at all.

The lack of response from her dumbfounded Leo. To have Janie hesitate about inviting him for a meal was shocking. Leo scowled and just stared at her openly, which only made her more nervous and uncertain. She knew she looked terrible. Leo wanted a woman who could do ranch work and cook, but surely he wanted one who looked pretty, too. Right now, Janie could have qualified for the Frump of the Year award.

She bit her lower lip, hard, and looked as if she were about to cry.

“Hey,” he said softly, in a tone he’d never used with her before, “what’s wrong?”

“Have to let this rise,” Hettie was murmuring after she’d covered the dough and washed her hands, oblivious to what was happening behind her. “Meanwhile I’m going to put another load of clothes in the washer, darlin’,” she called to Janie over her shoulder.

The door into the dining room closed, but they didn’t notice.

Leo moved closer to Janie, and suddenly his big, lean hands were on her thin shoulders, resting heavily over the soft denim. They were warm and very strong.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat while she looked up into black eyes that weren’t teasing or playful. They were intent, narrow, faintly glittering. There was no expression on his handsome face at all. He looked into her eyes as if he’d never seen them, or her, before—and she looked terrible!

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Tell me what’s wrong. If it’s something I can fix, I will.”

Her lips trembled. Surely, she could make up something, quick, before he moved away!

“I got hurt,” she whispered in a shameful lie. “When the calf dragged me around the corral.”

“Did you?” He was only half listening. His eyes were on her mouth. It was the prettiest little mouth, like a pink bow, full and soft, just barely parted over perfect, white teeth. He wondered if she’d been kissed, and how often. She never seemed to date, or at least, he didn’t know about her boyfriends. He shouldn’t be curious, either, but Marilee had hinted that Janie had more boyfriends than other local girls, that she was a real rounder.

Janie was melting. Her knees were weak. Any minute, she was going to be a little puddle of love looking up at his knees.

He felt her quiver under his hands, and his scowl grew darker. If she was as sophisticated as Marilee said she was, why was she trembling now? An experienced woman would be winding her arms around his neck already, offering her mouth, curving her body into his…

His fingers tightened involuntarily on her soft arms. “Come here,” he said huskily, and tugged her right up against his tall, muscular body. Of all the Harts, he was the tallest, and the most powerfully built. Janie’s breasts pressed into his diaphragm. She felt him tauten at the contact, felt his curiosity as he looked down into her wide, soft, dazed eyes. Her hands lightly touched his shirtfront, but hesitantly, as if it embarrassed her to touch him at all.

He let out a soft breath. His head was spinning with forbidden longings. Janie was barely twenty-one. She was the daughter of a man he did business with. She was off-limits. So why was he looking at her mouth and feeling his body swell sensuously at just the brush of her small breasts against him?

“Don’t pick at my shirt,” he said quietly. His voice was unusually deep and soft, its tone unfamiliar. “Flatten your hands on my chest.”

She did that, slowly, as if she were just learning how to walk. Her hands were cold and nervous, but they warmed on his body. She stood very still, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to regain the senses she was certain he’d momentarily lost. She didn’t even want to breathe, to do anything that would distract him. He seemed to be in a trance, and she was feeling dreams come true in the most unexpected and delightful way.

He smiled quizzically. “Don’t you know how?”

Her lips were dry. She moistened them with just the tip of her tongue. He seemed to find that little movement fascinating. He watched her mouth almost hungrily. “How… to… do what?” she choked.

His hand went to her cheek and his thumb suddenly ran roughly over her lips, parting them in a whip of urgent, shocking emotion. “How to do this,” he murmured as his head bent.

She saw the faint smile on his hard mouth as his lips parted. They brushed against hers in tiny little whispers of contact that weren’t nearly enough to feed the hunger he was coaxing out of her.

Her nails curled into his shirt and he tensed. She felt thick hair over the warm, hard muscles of his chest. Closer, she felt the hard, heavy thunder of his pulse there, under her searching hands.

“Nice,” he whispered. His voice was taut now, like his body against her.

She felt his big hands slide down her waist to her hips while he was playing with her mouth in the most arousing way. She couldn’t breathe. Did he know? Could he tell that she was shaking with desire?

Her lips parted more with every sensuous brush of his mouth against them. At the same time, his hands moved to her narrow hips and teased against her lower spine. She’d never felt such strange sensations. She felt her body swell, as if it had been stung all over by bees, but the sensation produced pleasure instead of pain.

He nibbled at her upper lip, feeling it quiver tentatively as his tongue slid under it and began to explore. One lean hand slid around to the base of her hips and slowly gathered them into his, in a lazy movement that made her suddenly aware of the changing contours of his body.

She gasped and pulled against his hand.

He lifted his head and searched her wide, shocked green eyes. “Plenty of boyfriends, hmm?” he murmured sarcastically, almost to himself.

“Boy… friends?” Her voice sounded as if she were being strangled.

His hand moved back to her waist, the other one moved to her round chin and his thumb tugged gently at her lower lip. “Leave it like this,” he whispered. His mouth hovered over hers just as it parted, and she found herself going on tiptoe, leaning toward him, almost begging for his mouth to come down and cover hers.

But he was still nibbling at her upper lip, gently toying with it, until he tilted her chin and his teeth tugged softly at the lower lip. His mouth brushed roughly over hers, teaching it to follow, to plead, then to demand something more urgent, more thorough than this slow torment.

Her nails bit into his chest and she moaned.

As if he’d been waiting patiently for that tiny little sound, his arms swallowed her up whole and his eyes, when they met hers, glittered like candlelight from deep in a cave.

His hand was in her ponytail, ripping away the rubber band so that he could catch strands of it in his strong fingers and angle her face just where he wanted it.

“Maybe you are old enough…” he breathed just before his mouth plunged deeply into hers.

She tautened all over with heated pleasure. Her body arched against him, no longer protesting the sudden hardness of him against her. She reached up to hold him, to keep that tormenting, hungry mouth against her lips. It was every dream she’d ever dreamed, coming true. She could hardly believe it was happening here, in broad daylight, in the kitchen where she’d been trying so hard to learn to make things that would please him. But he seemed to be pleased, just the same. He groaned against her lips, and his arms were bruising now, as if he wasn’t quite in control. That was exciting. She threw caution to the winds and opened her mouth deliberately under the crush of his, inviting him in.

She felt his tongue go deep into the soft darkness, and she shivered as his mouth devoured hers.

Only the sound of a door slamming penetrated the thick sensual fog that held them both in thrall.

Leo lifted his head, slowly, and looked down into a face he didn’t recognize. Janie’s green eyes were like wet emeralds in her flushed face. Her lips were swollen, soft, sensual. Her body was clinging to his. He had her off the floor in his hungry embrace, and his body was throbbing with desire.

He knew that she could feel him, that she knew he was aroused. It was a secret thing, that only the two of them knew. It had to stay that way. He had to stop. This was wrong…!

He let go of her slowly, easing her back, while he sucked in a long, hard breath and shivered with a hunger he couldn’t satisfy. He became aware of the rough grip he had on her upper arms and he relaxed it at once. He’d never meant to hurt her.

He fought for control, reciting multiplication tables silently in his mind until he felt his body unclench and relax.

It troubled him that he’d lost control so abruptly, and with a woman he should never have touched. He hadn’t meant to touch her in the first place. He couldn’t understand why he’d gone headfirst at her like that. He was usually cool with women, especially with Janie.

The way she was looking at him was disturbing. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do, and he didn’t know how to begin. Janie was years too young for him, only his body didn’t think so. Now he had to make his mind get himself out of this predicament.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said through his teeth.

She was hanging on every word, deaf to meanings, deaf to denials. Her body throbbed. “It’s like the flu,” she said, dazed, staring up at him. “It makes you… ache.”

He shook her gently. “You’re too young to have aches,” he said flatly. “And I’m old enough to know better than to do something this stupid. Are you listening to me? This shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.”

Belatedly, she realized that he was backtracking. Of course he hadn’t meant to kiss her. He’d made his opinion of her clear for years, and even if he liked kissing her, it didn’t mean that he was ready to rush out and buy a ring. Quite the opposite.

She stepped away from him, her face still flushed, her eyes full of dreams she had to hide from him.

“I… I’m sorry, too,” she stammered.

“Hell,” he growled, ramming his hands into his pockets. “It was my fault. I started it.”

She moved one shoulder. “No harm done.” She cleared her throat and fought for inspiration. It came unexpectedly. Her eyes began to twinkle wickedly. “I have to take lessons when they’re offered.”

His eyebrows shot up. Had he heard her say that, or was he delusional?

“I’m not the prom queen,” she pointed out. “Men aren’t thick on the ground around here, except old bachelors who chew tobacco and don’t bathe.”

“I call that prejudice,” he said, relaxing into humor.

“I’ll bet you don’t hang out with women who smell like dirty horses,” she said.

He pursed his lips. Like hers, they were faintly swollen. “I don’t know about that. The last time I saw you, I recall, you were neck-deep in mud and sh—”

“You can stop right there!” she interrupted, flushing.

His dark eyes studied her long hair, liking its thick waves and its light brown color. “Pity your name isn’t Jeanie,” he murmured. “Stephen Foster wrote a song about her hair.”

She smiled. He liked her hair, at least. Maybe he liked her a little, too.

She was pretty when she smiled like that, he thought, observing her. “Do I get invited to supper?” he drawled, lost in that soft, hungry look she was giving him. “If you say yes, I might consider giving you a few more lessons. Beginner class only, of course,” he added with a grin.

Chapter Two

Janie was sure she hadn’t heard him say that, but he was still smiling. She smiled back. She felt pretty. No makeup, no shoes, disheveled—and Leo had kissed her anyway. She beamed. At least, she beamed until she remembered the Hart bread mania. Any of them would do anything for a biscuit. Did that extend to homemade rolls?

“You’re looking suspicious,” he pointed out.

“A man who would kidnap a poor little pastry chef might do anything for a homemade roll,” she reminded him.

He sighed. “Hettie makes wonderful rolls,” he had to admit.

“Oh, you!” She hit him gently and then laughed. He was impossible. “Okay, you can come to supper.”

He beamed. “You’re a nice girl.”

Nice. Well, at least he liked her. It was a start. It didn’t occur to her, then, that a man who was seriously interested in her wouldn’t think of her as just “nice.”

Hettie came back into the room, still oblivious to the undercurrents, and got out a plastic bowl. She filled it with English peas from the crisper. “All right, my girl, sit down here and shell these. You staying?” she asked Leo.

“She said I could,” he told Hettie.

“Then you can go away while we get it cooked.”

“I’ll visit my bull. Fred’s got him in the pasture.”

Leo didn’t say another word. But the look he gave Janie before he left the kitchen was positively wicked.

But if she thought the little interlude had made any permanent difference in her relationship with Leo, Janie was doomed to disappointment. He came to supper, but he spent the whole time talking genetic breeding with Fred, and although he was polite to Janie, she might as well have been on the moon.

He didn’t stay long after supper, either, making his excuses and praising Hettie for her wonderful cooking. He smiled at Janie, but not the way he had when they were alone in the kitchen. It was as if he’d put the kisses out of his mind forever, and expected her to act as if he’d never touched her. It was disheartening. It was heartbreaking. It was just like old times, except that now Leo had kissed her and she wanted him to do it again. Judging by his attitude over supper, she had a better chance of landing a movie role.

She spent the next few weeks remembering Leo’s hungry kisses and aching for more of them. When she wasn’t daydreaming, she was practicing biscuit-making. Hettie muttered about the amount of flour she was going through.

“Janie, you’re going to bankrupt us in the kitchen!” the older woman moaned when Janie’s fifth batch of biscuits came out looking like skeet pigeons. “That’s your second bag of flour today!”

Janie was glowering at her latest effort on the baking sheet. “Something’s wrong, and I can’t decide what. I mean, I put in salt and baking powder, just like the recipe said…”

Hettie picked up the empty flour bag and read the label. Her eyes twinkled. “Janie, darlin’, you bought self-rising flour.”

“Yes. So?” she asked obliviously.

“If it’s self-rising, it already has the salt and baking powder in it, doesn’t it?”

Janie burst out laughing. “So that’s what I’m doing wrong! Hand me another bag of flour, could you?”

“This is the last one,” Hettie said mournfully.

“No problem. I’ll just drive to the store and get some more. Need anything?”

“Milk and eggs,” Hettie said at once.

“We’ve got four chickens,” Janie exclaimed, turning, “and you have to buy eggs?”

“The chickens are molting.”

Janie smiled. “And when they molt, they don’t lay. Sorry. I forgot. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she added, peeling off her apron.

She paused just long enough to brush her hair out, leaving it long, and put on a little makeup. She thrust her arms into her nice fringed leather jacket, because it was seasonably cool outside as well as raining, and popped into her red sports car. You never could tell when you might run into Leo, because he frequently dashed into the supermarket for frozen biscuits and butter when he was between cooks.

Sure enough, as she started for the checkout counter with her milk, eggs and flour, she spotted Leo, head and shoulders above most of the men present. He was wearing that long brown Australian drover’s coat he favored in wet weather, and he was smiling in a funny sort of way.

That was when Janie noticed his companion. He was bending down toward a pretty little brunette who was chattering away at his side. Janie frowned, because that dark wavy hair was familiar. And then she realized who it was. Leo was talking to Marilee Morgan!

She relaxed. Marilee was her friend. Surely, she was talking her up to Leo. She almost rushed forward to say hello, but what if she interrupted at a crucial moment? There was, after all, the annual Jacobsville Cattleman’s Ball in two weeks, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was very likely that Marilee was dropping hints right and left that Janie would love Leo to escort her.

She chuckled to herself. She was lucky to have a friend like Marilee.

If Janie had known what Marilee was actually saying to Leo, she might have changed her mind about the other woman’s friendship and a lot of other things.