He must have been terribly hurt, she thought, though he would never put it in those terms.
“Maybe I was afraid you would turn me away,” he said, “so I never even tried.”
Her heart ached for him. She wanted to explain, but she couldn’t, not yet. She had to give it some thought. And she couldn’t think with Jake’s overwhelming presence filling her kitchen and stealing her breath away every time she looked at him. Maturity had only sharpened his already awesome virility.
“Well, I’m glad you finally came forward,” she said, the words woefully inadequate. “I’m glad you’re not…”
“Not dead?”
That’s what she’d been thinking, and it sounded awful. “Jake, I’m just too shocked to know what to say or how I feel. I think it would be better if you left.” Before she said or did anything really stupid—like throwing her arms around him and absorbing his sheer aliveness.
He shook his head. “Not yet. I still have some business I want to discuss with you.”
“What business?” she asked warily.
“I saw your ad in the Tyler paper. The one for the ranch manager,” he added, as if she ran dozens of ads and needed clarification.
“And?”
“I’d like to apply for the position.”
“Jake, don’t be ridiculous!” she exploded. “Where would you get a fool notion like that?”
“Now, wait a minute, hear me out. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.”
“The hell it’s not. You can’t—”
“Laurie, let me explain.”
She clamped her mouth shut. Apparently Jake was going tosay his piece, and she wouldn’t get him out of here until she let him.
“Now, then. I’ve heard some rumors that you’re having problems here, and I can see just by looking around that they’re true. Also, I know that you wouldn’t be trying to hire a manager if you didn’t need help. Just how bad is it?”
She considered lying. She didn’t want to appear any more vulnerable to Jake than she already did. But she was afraid the sheer misery of her situation would shine through no matter what she said. “It’s pretty bad,” she confessed. “Our insurance wasn’t adequate to cover the medical bills.”
That was an understatement.
“I thought I could scrape by. I sold off some of the stock, but that cut into the Folly’s income. Since then I’ve made some bad decisions.” She shrugged helplessly.
Jake nodded, as if he’d suspected as much. “How do you intend to pay your new manager’s salary?”
“Well…I was hoping to work something out. The position offers a nice little house, and I’d cook all the meals, like I already do for Maurice. Beyond that, I thought maybe some type of profit-sharing arrangement. The better job the manager does, the more money he makes.”
Jake was shaking his head.
“It could work,” Laurie said defensively.
“Have you had any qualified applicants?”
“Frankly, no, but the ad’s only been running a few days.”
“And do you honestly think a qualified applicant would work for you under those terms?”
“If he has vision,” she answered. “If he’s confident he can turn things around. The Folly once made bushels of money—and it will again. Anyway, if you think it’s such a bad deal, why are you considering it?”
“Several reasons,” he said, pacing the kitchen like a lawyer preparing to give a closing argument. “One, I know horses.”
“You grew up with cattle,” she said pointedly.
“But you can’t run cattle without horses, and I’ve bought and sold more than a few. I might not be Charlie’s equal when it comes to his knowledge about breeding, but it can’t be that different from breeding cattle.”
She suspected it was a lot different, but since she knew nothing about cattle, she couldn’t offer an intelligent argument. So she nodded, conceding the point.
“Two,” Jake continued, ticking his points off on his fingers, “I don’t need money, so it doesn’t matter what you pay me.”
“You don’t need money?” she repeated, incredulous. She’d never met anyone who would admit that. Even rich folks who already had lots of money always claimed to need more.
“The government gave me a generous settlement for my, er, unscheduled vacation in Costa Rica,” he said with a wry smile. “Actually, it was hush money. I was shot by my own man, the accounts of my death were falsified, and they made no effort to secure my release. They knew that, with a few well-chosen words in the right ears, I could have opened a huge can of worms. Not that I would have. I didn’t need that kind of aggravation. But I didn’t turn down the settlement.”
“Okay, so you’re set for life. That still doesn’t explain why you would want to.come here. Make no mistake, the manager’s job won’t be easy.”
“Maybe I need a challenge,” Jake said, reclaiming his chair across from her. “Maybe I need a change. I’ve been drifting aimlessly too long.” He leaned across the table, until his face was uncomfortably close to hers. “But mostly, I want the job because I owe you something, Laurie. I promised to marry you, and I broke that promise. I put you through quite a bit of distress, I imagine.”
“Distress? How about a living hell?” she retorted, suddenly angry again. Years ago she’d sworn she would never forgive him for leaving her alone, and that still held true.
“Must have been some living hell,” he said, his fury matching hers. “Took you all of two months to find a replacement groom.”
Perhaps he had a point, Laurie silently conceded. It must seem to Jake as if she’d gotten over her heartbreak pretty quickly. “Charlie helped me through it,” she said simply. It was the truth.
“If I could go back and relive that day,” Jake said quietly, “and do things differently, I would. Obviously I can’t. But if I can help you out of this situation…”
“No,” she said. “Not to soothe your conscience, not even if I really believed you could get me out of the mess I’m in. It could never work.”
“You won’t even consider it? On a temporary basis?”
“Absolutely not.” The thought of seeing him every day, cooking dinner for him every night, brushed uncomfortably close to those girlish fantasies she’d once had before Jake’s disappearance had shattered her life. Those dreams were wrapped securely in mental tissue paper and pushed far to the back of her mind—and they weren’t getting out.
“You’re being unreasonable,” he said, rising slowly from his chair, towering over her intimidatingly. “If you don’t get some help, and soon, you could lose the Folly.”
She knew that, dammit. “I’ll get some help. But not from you.” Standing also, she stared at him, refusing to back down even an inch. That old electricity arced between them, and for one insane moment she thought he was looking not into her eyes, but at her mouth, and that he was thinking about kissing her.
The phone rang, cutting through the tension. Laurie turned abruptly to answer the old black wall phone. “Hello?”
Jake continued to watch her as he took a few steadying breaths. God, she was magnificent. She’d been a fiery, passionate girl when he’d last seen her. Now she was unmistakably a woman. Motherhood had added curves to her previously boyish figure. More importantly, the hardships she’d endured over the past four years had