Tempted by the Texan

When she got into her car, she glanced up at the house to see Jaron still standing on the porch, watching her. His arms were folded across his broad chest and he was leaning one shoulder against a support post. He looked so darned good to her it took her breath away.

Mariah worried her lower lip as she weighed her options. If she drove away, she might never get the answers she wanted from Jaron. And if she stayed, she might get an explanation that she didn’t want to hear. Unfortunately, she would never know unless she took the chance.

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the door handle. She might be setting herself up for a huge fall, but she just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to settle things with Jaron Lambert once and for all.

* * *

Jaron frowned when he watched Mariah open the car door. What was she doing? She had rejected his guilt-induced job offer outright, and he had been greatly relieved. Why wasn’t she leaving and getting on with her life, so he could try to get on with his? He had made it perfectly clear there was nothing to talk over and that they’d never be more than good friends.

Or could she be having more car trouble? That had to be it, he decided. Her car was older and had so many miles on it that he’d been surprised it had only taken a battery to get it going that morning.

By the time she made her way back to the porch in those ridiculously high heels, he was reaching for the cell phone to call Billy Ray to come up from the barn to see about her car again. But when she climbed the steps to stand in front of him, the defiant look on her pretty face stopped him cold.

“I changed my mind. I’m taking the job you offered me until I can find an office management position. I expect you to be in Shady Grove first thing Saturday morning with your truck to help me move,” she stated flatly. Turning, she added as she descended the steps to go back to her car, “And don’t be late. I want to get settled in before I have to start the job on Monday morning.”

Shocked all the way down to his size-twelve Tony Lamas, all Jaron could do was stand there staring as he watched her march back down the steps and out to her car. As she drove away, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had just happened. He’d only offered her the job of housekeeper and cook as a token gesture because he’d been sure she would turn it down. And she had. So why had she changed her mind?

Rubbing at the sudden tension building at the back of his neck, Jaron watched her car disappear down the lane leading to the main road before he turned and walked back into the house. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t rescind the job offer. He’d brought it up and Mariah had accepted it. As far as he was concerned, that was as good as a written contract.

But what was he going to do about living in the same house with her? How was he going to keep from going completely insane from the temptation she posed day in and day out? And why was there a part of him that wasn’t the least bit sorry that she had taken the job?

Three

Late Saturday afternoon, Jaron carried the last of Mariah’s things into the Wild Maverick ranch house and wondered how one woman could possibly need so much stuff. She had two huge boxes alone that had been marked “shoes.” Why did she need so many? All he had were his dress boots, a couple of pairs of work boots and a pair of athletic shoes he wore when he worked out.

For reasons he didn’t want to delve into, he had decided to move her into the room he’d shown her the night he brought her home with him from the Broken Spoke, instead of the housekeeper’s quarters off the kitchen. And it was just as well that he had. The closet down there was way too small and would have never held all of her clothes and shoes.

“Is that the last of the boxes from my car?” Mariah asked, sticking her head out of the walk-in closet when he entered the bedroom.

He nodded. “That’s the last of it.”

“Just be glad I donated a lot of clothes and household items to the crisis center,” she said, laughing as she walked out of the closet to get one of the containers of shoes. “If I hadn’t, you’d probably be carrying in boxes until well after midnight.”

“Do you want this in the closet?” he asked, stepping forward to pick up the big box for her.

“I could have carried that myself,” she said, following him.

Setting it in front of the built-in shoe racks, he shook his head. “My foster father would come back and haunt me if I let you do that. If he told us once, he told us a hundred times that a man should never let a woman carry anything unless both of his arms were broken.”