Lane shook his head. “Thanks, but you’ve spent most of your day off helping her and I’m sure you’d like to rest up before you move that herd of heifers over to the north pasture tomorrow morning. If she wants something else done, I’ll take care of it.”
The man looked as though he might want to argue the point, but apparently he decided that crossing the boss might not be a wise choice. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning then,” he finally said, turning toward the hall.
Lane leaned one shoulder against the kitchen doorway and waited for Roy Lee to bid Taylor a good evening and leave before he walked over to where she stood at the counter finishing the dessert she was working on. “Now that your problem is solved with Roy Lee, I’m going to take a shower and drive over to Beaver Dam for the evening.”
“You won’t be here for dinner?” she asked, looking disappointed. “I’m making prime rib, twice-baked potatoes with herbs and cheese, asparagus spears with hollandaise sauce and crème brûlée for dessert.”
She had apparently been too distracted by wanting to get rid of Roy Lee to have heard him tell her earlier that he was leaving for the evening. He shifted from one foot to the other as he stared into her crystalline green eyes. She was going to a lot of trouble making dinner and if the look on her pretty face was any indication, she was going to be extremely disappointed if he didn’t stick around to eat it. He decided right then and there that if he wanted to talk her into selling her share of the ranch to him, or at the very least convince her to go back to L.A., he was going to have to placate her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting her to agree to anything.
“I thought you might not feel like making dinner after spending the day unpacking and arranging your things,” he lied.
She gave him a smile that caused a hitch in his breathing. “Cooking is one of the ways I relax.”
“Do I have time to take a quick shower before dinner?” he asked, unbuttoning the cuffs of his work shirt.
“Sure.” She placed the ceramic ramekins in a pan with water in the bottom, then began to fill them with the crème brûlée mixture. “Everything should be ready by the time you come back downstairs.”
Nodding, Lane clenched his jaw as he walked out of the kitchen and headed upstairs. He wasn’t the least bit happy about the change in his plans for the evening. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. It was one of those damned if he did and damned if he didn’t situations where no matter what he chose to do, he’d be the one suffering the consequences.
Taylor would take it as a deliberate insult if he didn’t have dinner with her and insulting her would make it impossible to talk to her about the future of the ranch. And then there was the matter of the itch he needed to scratch. Just being in the same room with her seemed to charge the atmosphere with a tension that sent hormones racing through his veins at the speed of light, reminding him that he was a man with a man’s needs.
When his body tightened in response to that thought, he muttered a guttural curse and headed straight into the bathroom to turn on the cold water. Stripping off his dusty clothes, he stepped inside and hoped the icy spray would clear his head, as well as traumatize his body into submission.
As he stood there with his teeth chattering like a pair of cheap castanets, a plan began to take shape in his mind. If successful, it would settle things once and for all. And the sooner he got Taylor to agree to it, the better.
If he didn’t, he had a feeling one of two things would happen. She would either drive him completely insane or he would end up suffering frostbite on parts of his body that no man ever wanted to think about freezing.
Three
“Thank you for getting rid of Roy Lee for me,” Taylor said as she sat down in the chair Donaldson held for her. “I was so relieved to finally have him out of the house, I forgot to thank you earlier.”
He shrugged as he sat down at the head of the table. “I don’t think he meant any harm.”
“Probably not,” she admitted. “He’s just always seemed a little creepy to me, even as a teenager.”
“So you’ve known him a long time?”
She nodded. “He started working summers here before he got out of high school.” Pausing, she had to think back. “That would have been about twelve years ago.”
“Besides overstaying his welcome this afternoon, has Roy Lee ever said or done anything else that made you feel uncomfortable?” Donaldson asked, taking a sip of the cabernet she’d had him open and pour for them.