“I was just muttering while I decide how to paint that picture over there,” she said.
His eyes opened slowly and he sat up straight. “Guess I’d best put the soup on if it’s going to be done by dinnertime. That and a skillet of corn bread should do for dinner and supper both, right?”
“I’ll make the corn bread,” she said.
“You don’t cook,” he reminded her.
“I lied. I can cook. I just don’t enjoy it. Grand made me learn enough to survive, and I make a mean skillet of corn bread and the best Christmas sugar cookies in the whole canyon.”
“You lied! What else did you lie about?”
Dammit! Was it a real lie if a person just omitted details?
“I saw the cardinal, but it was earlier in the day,” she said.
“That all?”
She squinted at him and set her mouth in a firm line. “Did you tell any lies this morning? About that dog, maybe?”
“I did not. Your grandmother didn’t say a word about a dog on the place and mine are registered redbone hounds. Two of them, Reba and Wynonna. They sure don’t look like that mutt. So one more time, darlin’—that animal did not come from my neck of the woods.”
She giggled. “Did you really name two bitches after the red-haired country singers?”
“You got it. They sing real pretty when they tree a coon or track a coyote.”
She looked at the sleeping dog. “Think they’ll like Noel?”
“They probably won’t even think she’s a dog. She looks like a big ball of tangled up yarn, don’t she?”
The wiry dog did look like its momma had been a poodle and its daddy a cross between a schnauzer and a ball of wool yarn. She opened one eyelid and whimpered.
Sage bent over and scratched the dog’s ears. “It’s okay, Noel. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Her fur is a whole lot softer than it looks, Creed. Do you think we should give her an old quilt? That hardwood floor is hard and cold.”
“Might be nice.” Creed grinned.
Chapter 3
Creed was a big man and Sage wasn’t a midget. The kitchen was small, and every time he or Sage moved an inch they bumped into one another. A shot of her rounded fanny bending over to slide the corn bread inside the oven shouldn’t have been sexy, not in sweat bottoms, but it was. Breasts brushing against his upper arm or plowing into his chest were a different matter. That he could understand stirring up things behind his zipper.
It had been a long time since he’d had sex, but his body could have behaved a lot better in his estimation. She’d made it very clear that she did not like him and intended to throw every obstacle she could in his way to keep him from buying the ranch. She’d lied to him about her cooking abilities, and now she was tempting him with every touch and move.
It wasn’t fair. She was getting away scot-free and he was being punished. He’d gotten into scrapes. What kid didn’t? He’d been drunk at rodeos. What cowboy hadn’t? But God did not have to hate him so badly that He made his body respond to a woman who would shoot him stone-cold dead and never feel a bit of remorse about it.
He’d made several trips to the window to imagine lying naked, facedown in the driving blizzard. Thinking about something that cold on his bare skin and manhood usually shrank it back down pretty fast, but each time it took longer than the last time because pictures of Sage lying naked next to him kept popping up. And the imaginary heat between them melted every bit of the snow for a hundred yards and turned what was falling into warm rain.
When the corn bread was almost done, he dipped up two big bowls of soup and put them on the table. While he did that, she bent over one more time to get the corn bread out of the oven and transport it to the table. He bit his lip to keep from moaning out loud and shoved his hands into his hip pockets to keep from cupping her fanny in his hand. He’d only met the woman that morning, for God’s sake!
She put a container of homemade butter and the salt and pepper shakers on the table, and then looked around to see if she’d forgotten anything.
He rolled off two paper towels to use for napkins and joined her.
“Grace?” he asked.
“Grand usually does that,” she answered.
“I’ll do it since it’s going to be my house,” he said.
She bowed her head, said “amen” right after he did, and picked up her spoon.
“Mmmm,” she said. “What’s your secret? This is fantastic.”
“Picante. I like to use my own, but there’s no electricity and I have to have a blender to make it. I found that in the pantry and it worked pretty good,” he answered. “You like it, do you?”
It shouldn’t matter, but he wanted her to like the food. He wanted her to like him and for them to be good neighbors. He didn’t want to feel tightness in his chest every time she smiled, but that was just a physical reaction to a very pretty woman.
“It’s been a week since I’ve had good home food. Next week it might not taste nearly as good, but right now it’s wonderful,” she said.
“That’s a left-handed compliment if I ever heard one.”
One shoulder raised up half an inch. “I said it was fantastic, didn’t I?”
Noel left her tattered old blanket Sage had rustled up from the linen closet and went straight to Sage’s side of the table. She gave a little yip, her eyes on Sage’s soup bowl.
Creed was glad that the dog had taken to Sage and not him. Reba and Wynonna would pitch a for real bitch fit if he let something like that live in the house and they had to stay outside.
“This is probably too hot for you, girl. I’ll find something after
