MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA Page 6

  There was pleasure in watching Hannah, but it wasn't a comfortable pleasure. Not when it came so close to craving. Not when he'd spent six years getting his life on an even keel again, without the vicious highs and lows of a marriage made in hell. Nate intended to live the rest of his life alone.

  But taking Hannah to bed didn't have to change that, did it? He didn't care about her. He wanted her, but he didn't care. Still, it came as an unpleasant shock to realize how much he wanted her. He'd been fooling himself when he'd tried to make her leave. He didn't want to fire Hannah. He didn't intend to let her leave.

  Not yet.

  Maybe his life had gotten too steady. Too level. Maybe, after six years of taking care of his needs as rarely and efficiently as possible, he was ready for a brief, purely sexual adventure. A man could hunger for excitement without letting it disrupt his solitude, couldn't he? And she was just the woman to give him what he wanted—a hard, hot, fast ride.

  Hannah felt him watching her.

  She finished with Ajax's hooves, put him up in his stall and, following Nate's terse directions, found his feed and gave him his supper. Then, because Nate was still eating and she had no intention of making casual conversation when the questions she needed to ask were anything but casual, she moved up and down the line of stalls.

  He had a magnificent Appaloosa mare and a couple of purebred quarter horses. The other four horses stabled there were as mixed in their ancestry as Ajax. Not as homely, though. She smiled as she came to a stop at Ajax's stall again, reaching over the half door to stroke his nose. She'd disagreed with Nate when he'd called his horse ugly, but there was no denying Ajax wasn't going to win any equine beauty contests.

  "Do you want to ride?"

  His voice, dark and suggestive, sent a shiver up her spine. She wanted to ignore it. "If you wouldn't mind."

  "You're welcome to saddle any of the horses but the Appaloosa mare."

  "Thanks." She hugged her arms, rubbing goose bumps away, as she turned to face him.

  He bent to set his plate on the floor. Trixie watched him, her ears perked with anticipation. As soon as he told her "okay," she fell on the scraps with tail-wagging appreciation. The whole thing looked automatic to Hannah, as if he always saved the last bite of his meal for his dog.

  He hadn't taken his eyes off Hannah the whole time. She frowned. "Didn't your mama ever tell you it was rude to stare?"

  "Yeah, she did. But I figure you're used to men staring at you."

  "I'm used to getting a runny nose in the spring, too, when the pollen count is high, but that doesn't mean I like it."

  He actually smiled. Dammit, that was an unfair thing to do.

  "Listen," she said, a little too quickly, "I didn't come down here to give you something to stare at. I have a couple questions."

  He leaned back in the chair, stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. "Ask."

  She licked her lips. "Did you ask me to stay on until you can get someone else for my sake, or yours?"

  "Mine," he said tersely.

  "Well, that isn't good enough."

  "I don't know what the hell you want, but—"

  "A week. I want you to give me a week. I deserve a chance to show you I can do the job you hired me for."

  Now he seemed amused, his mouth curling up. "You can have your week, Hannah."

  She blinked, confused. Surely that had been too easy. "Well—okay, then."

  "Nice to find we can agree on something."

  Why did she get the feeling, looking at him, that there was some part of their conversation she was missing? "Yes," she said dubiously.

  "Why are you so set on keeping this job, anyway? I would have thought you would be glad to see the last of this place, and me. Unless…" He tilted his head to the side, a small gesture that had the effect, almost, of a smile. "Unless you were hoping for a repeat of this morning."

  "No." She shook her head, flushing. "Oh, no. That won't happen again. I can promise you that."

  He didn't reply. He just looked at her as if he were waiting for her to say something reasonable. Irritated, she said, "It was unprofessional on my part. An impulse. I'm impulsive sometimes, but I don't repeat my mistakes."

  "If you're not looking for a repeat, why do you want to stay?"

  Her chin shifted a fraction higher. "I'm broke. I need the work."

  "Harry said you were good enough that you stayed booked up most of the time."

  "Harry also said this job would last two months."

  "Which is it you want—to stay a week, or the full two months?"

  She lifted one eyebrow. "You seem bright enough, even if you are stubborn as a blind jackass. I want you to promise me a week. By the end of that time, you'll realize you've been a hundred-percent wrong about me, and, rather than admit it, you'll quit bringing up the idea of me leaving. So I'll wind up staying two months."

  "You're better at honesty than tact, aren't you?" Most people looked softer when they were amused. He didn't. "Tell me, do you sometimes have trouble keeping a job?"

  "Not as a home health aide, but I was a lousy waitress," she admitted. "You're not supposed to lecture the customers, but I never could put up with rudeness. And I still don't see what was so wrong with offering people suggestions about avoiding saturated fat. I'm not a fanatic or anything, but the fact is that saturated fat—"

  He chuckled.

  "It's very bad for you."

  "Bossy."

  "Yeah," she said softly. "I am."

  It was quiet there in the stable, though not totally silent; one horse shifted and another snuffled idly at the straw in its stall. The building itself creaked as the outside temperature fell along with the night. Contentment, like the ache in well-used muscles, seeped into Hannah, softening her defenses. She met Nate's eyes and forgot to look away.

  He said he had once killed. She looked at him, and all she saw was a man. Just a man. He was a little too sexy, a lot too pigheaded and scary in ways that had little to do with his record. He was crazy about his dog and had a deep-seated wariness of others, and she thought he was more alone than just about anyone she'd ever known.

  And right now, he was looking at her as if she were the one thing in the world he really wanted.

  Her heart began to pound.

  Trixie, who had been lying companionably by Nate's feet, lifted her head, then stood, a low growl sounding in her throat. Nate laid his hand on the animal's head and looked out the stable door. Hannah turned to look, too.

  A second later, she heard a car engine. "It's late for someone to be dropping by," she said. In her experience, ranch folk seldom dropped in without calling first. Their days and their neighbors' days were too full for paying unplanned visits at what might be a bad time. "Maybe someone from town…" Her voice drifted off.

  Through the open doors of the stable, headlights cut the darkness as a vehicle pulled up in front of the house and stopped.

  "It's someone from town, all right," Nate said, standing. "The sheriff."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Hannah could hear Mark's shoot-'em-up movie before she reached his room. Arnold Schwarzenegger was angry because the woman hadn't done what he'd told her to do. She'd stuck her nose into his he-man heroics, and he was all bent out of shape about it.

  She shook her head. If that wasn't typical of the whole arrogant, high-handed gender! Men. Always telling people what to do, where to go and what to do when you got there. Like Nate, sending her into the house while he talked to the sheriff. Telling her to "for once" go do what she'd been hired to do. For once! As if she hadn't been doing her job.

  It took an effort, but she managed to smooth her expression by the time she passed through her patient's doorway.

  "It's about time," Mark said.

  Of course, her patient was a man, too. "Ready for our pain pill, are we?" she asked sweetly.

  "Oh, no, you don't. Not until bedtime. That's what we agreed when you palmed
that ace this afternoon."

  "Did you see me palm an ace?" She came closer, trying to determine how much of his pallor was due to the poor lighting, and how much to pain.

  "No, but very few decks have five of them." He pointed the remote at the screen, freezing Arnold in mid-leap as an explosion hurled flames at him and the heroine. "What did Royce want?"

  "Who's Royce?" The hospital-style table beside Mark's bed held the remains of Mark's supper. She pulled it closer and started clearing the dishes.

  "Royce Thompson is the sheriff."

  She stopped to stare. "How did you know he was here?" This bedroom was at the back of the house, so Mark couldn't have seen the headlights.

  He nodded at the portable intercom that sat on the table. "Nate left his end on out in the stable. Now, most of the time all I could hear were horses chewing and failing, but when you and Nate got to talking—"

  "You eavesdropped!"

  He grinned. "You two were a lot more interesting than the movie."

  Just what had she and Nate said to each other in the stable? And—she glanced at the intercom—yes, she could hear a faint hum coming from it. The other unit was still turned on. "We need to turn this off. Nate and the sheriff might go into the stable, after all." But she didn't reach for the switch.

  "Why, Hannah, you wouldn't be thinking of eavesdropping, would you?"

  "It isn't any of my business." Still, she took her time clearing away Mark's supper things, stacking the dessert plate on the supper plate, then placing the knife and fork on top. One at a time. Just in case.

  "I don't know. It might be your business. You and my brother have something going on?"

  "Of course not. He's my employer."

  "I don't guess you'd tell me if you did. But if you blush like that every time I say his name—"

  "I did not blush. I never blush."

  "—and get all flustered when I ask you about him, something must be going on. Just what did happen this morning that you're not looking to repeat?"

  She opened her mouth to tell him that it was none of his business, realized that would only confirm what he was thinking, and closed it again. "Are Nate and the sheriff friends? Is that why he came out here?"

  Dryly, he said, "I don't think Nate numbers any law officers from Bitter Creek among his friends."

  "Because of his record?"

  "So he did tell you about that? I wondered. Is that why you want to know what's going on with the sheriff now?" The mischief in his eyes faded. "I thought you were curious about Nate personally, but maybe not. Maybe you get excited by a man with a violent past. I didn't think you were the type of woman who gets off on that sort of thing, but—"

  Her jaw tightened. "You've said enough."

  "Not quite. See, I'm not always a great judge of character. I could be wrong about you, and my brother has already been messed around by a woman with a twisted need for attention. So if you're looking for thrills, leave him alone. Come see me instead. I can give you what you need," he said, and the smile on his mouth wasn't a smile anymore when it reached his eyes.

  Hannah tried to hang on to her temper. "I like to have a personal relationship with my patients. I'm with them for weeks, sometimes months at a time. But that means friendship. Not the kind of sorry substitute you're talking about. If you can't accept that, then your brother will get his wish, because I'll have to leave."

  The signs of his tension had been so subtle that she hadn't seen them. She only noticed their absence as his expression eased. "Sorry."

  "If that's supposed to make everything all right—"

  "I really didn't take you for a woman who's looking for cheap thrills. But I have to cover all the bases, so…" His mouth quirked up at one corner. "I still have to point out that if you're after money instead of thrills—"

  "Why are you and your brother so blasted preoccupied with money? Do you think that every woman on the face of the planet is for sale, or is it just me?"

  His eyebrows lifted. "Did Nate offer you money?"

  Uh-oh. Said too much again, hadn't she? "It's a good thing I'm not the sort of person who gets my feelings hurt easily, or I'd be upset. Your opinion of me isn't exactly flattering." She grabbed the stack of dishes and started for the door.

  "But it's not my opinion that matters to you, is it?" he called after her.

  She paused in the doorway and, for once, voted in favor of caution and keeping a few things to herself. "I'll be back to help you get ready for bed after I've done the dishes."

  * * *

  Hannah loaded Mark's dishes in the dishwasher and then attacked the pans she'd left soaking.

  Was it her? Did she do her hair wrong, or say the wrong things, or—or just what was it about her that made some people think she was cheap?

  No, she told herself firmly, rubbing at the outside of a saucepan that hadn't been scoured in far too long. No, she was not going down that road—not again. She'd worked too hard at building her self-esteem to let a rude man with night-dark eyes—make that two rude men, she corrected herself, rinsing the pot—neither of whom could see past a woman's bra size, affect the way she thought about herself.

  Yes, she'd dropped out of high school to get married, and that was a dumb move, definitely dumb, but lots of people did stupid things at that age. That kind of stupidity didn't have to be permanent, even if sometimes the consequences were. She wasn't stupid or cheap or anything like what her ex-husband and his parents had made her out to be.

  Fortunately, the meatloaf pan needed a lot of scrubbing.

  * * *

  By eight o'clock Hannah had finished the dishes and gone in to help Mark get ready for the night. He didn't want pajamas, he didn't want her to bathe him again, and he growled something about not needing to be tucked in, either. So she made sure he took his pain pill, then left him with a couple of basins of water, a washcloth and towel, toothpaste and toothbrush. She was just leaving his room when she heard the front door open, then shut.

  It was Nate, of course. Probably he thought she was still in the kitchen, since the light was on in there, and that's why he'd come in through the front door.

  Well, let him avoid her. That was fine with her. She certainly had no intention of asking a bunch of nosy questions. No, she was going to get herself ready for bed early, and then read for a while.

  After her shower, naturally she went to the kitchen to get the coffeepot ready to be turned on when she got up in the morning. And on her way back to her room she couldn't help noticing the bar of light beneath the closed door to Nate's office. That wasn't what made her pause, though. There was a creaky board in the hall outside his office, and the noise it made startled her for a moment right outside his door.

  She didn't go in. She had better sense than that. She went back to her bedroom, turned on the light by the bed and took out the anatomy textbook she'd bought secondhand last summer. And if the fool man had gone to bed at a reasonable hour for a rancher who had to be up before dawn, she could have kept her resolve, too. It was his fault she couldn't sleep. Usually an hour spent on "Muscles That Move the Thigh," from the psoas major to the gracilis, was enough to put her out for the night.

  But how could she doze off when she was listening for that creaky board?

  A little after ten she switched to another book: the worn copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales that traveled everywhere with her. She ran her hand over the faded cover and thought about all the nights that her sister had read to her from this book. She had a dim memory of their mother reading from it, too, but she didn't remember her mother very well. She'd died when Hannah was five.

  Because Hannah had been raised on the original stories of the Brothers Grimm, she didn't think of fairy tales as spun-sugar children's stories the way many people did. No, her fairy tales were soaked in danger, treachery and terror, and only those with faithful hearts and great courage prevailed against the forces set against them. In these pages, Red Riding Hood was swallowed by the wolf and saved by the hunts-man's ax. Cind
erella's cruel stepsisters ended up maimed and blinded. Justice here was as brutal as life, as certain as death, but true love still healed all ills.

  Hannah opened the book to the story of Rapunzel. She read once more about how the handsome son of the king fell in love and ended up grieving and blinded, his love lost and his eyes scratched out by thorns. He wandered sightless in the wilderness for many years, until he found his love again. Even though he couldn't see her, he knew her voice. When they embraced, two of her tears fell on his ruined eyes, restoring his vision.

  For some reason, Hannah's eyes tried to tear up when she read that part. Disgusted with herself she gave up, closed the book, threw back her covers and slid her feet into her slippers.

  It was five minutes after eleven when she went down the hall. That bar of light still shone beneath the door to his office.

  She hesitated for a second before lifting her hand and knocking.

  "Come in."

  Nate's office was a small, windowless room next to the formal dining room. A large desk on the west wall held a computer, monitor and printer. The chair in front of that desk held Nate, who swiveled to face her. Aside from the desk and the man, the room contained two filing cabinets, an ugly brown love seat, and lots and lots and lots of papers. Files, computer printouts, magazines, canceled checks, miscellaneous papers and newspaper clippings were ranged into tidy piles, but those piles were everywhere.

  The room also held a dog. Trixie was curled up near Nate's feet, sound asleep.

  So, Hannah thought. He sometimes lets her in the kitchen, huh? But not the rest of the house? Right. She glanced at the piles as she stopped a few feet inside the room. It seemed best to look at something other than the dark-eyed man who watched her without speaking. "Chaos by a nose," she said.

  He frowned. "What?"

  She gestured at his office. "The war between chaos and order? Entropy? It looks like chaos is ahead in here by a nose."

  "Entropy," he repeated, looking baffled.

  She nodded. It was one of her favorite vocabulary words because it applied to so many situations. "Yes, you know—the tendency for things in a closed system to go from a high-energy state to a low-energy state. From order to disorder. Entropy. Looks like it's happening here."