“Clay!”
Clay spun, his grin fading when he saw his father standing in the barn’s doorway, scowling, his arms folded across his chest. “Yeah, Dad?” he called.
“You’ve got chores waiting.”
“But couldn’t I eat something first?”
When his father merely angled his head and arched a brow in warning, Clay heaved a sigh. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, then turned to Annie. “Sorry. Guess I’ll have to grab something later.”
Offering him a sympathetic smile, Annie slipped the backpack from his shoulder and lifted it to her own. “I’ll save some dip for you,” she promised.
As she watched Clay trudge toward the barn, she glanced Jase’s way and saw that he waited in the doorway still wearing the now-familiar scowl…and wondered how much of the man’s gruffness was direct fallout from the loss of his wife.
“Could I crank up the rototiller and plow up the garden for Annie?”
Hunkered down beside the engine he was working on, Jase glanced up at Clay’s question, then frowned and turned his attention back to the spark plug he was adjusting. “You’ve got chores to do.”
“But afterwards?” Clay persisted. “It wouldn’t take me long and it’ll take her forever to clean out all those weeds using just a hoe.”
“There’s more important work that needs to be done than tilling a garden.”
“Like what?”
At the frustration he heard in his son’s voice, Jase dropped the wrench to his knee and glanced up, his frown deepening. “Like the fence that needs mending down in the bottom. The new calves I hauled in last night that need feeding and watering. The well house that needs painting.”
Ducking his head, Clay scuffed the toe of his boot at the loose hay in the alleyway. “There’s always work that needs doing around here,” he mumbled.
Jase pushed his hands against his knees and rose. “And there always will be,” he said, tossing the wrench to the workbench, “so long as you complain about your chores instead of just doing them.”
“I’m not complaining,” Clay argued. “I just wanted to help Annie out.”
“If the new nanny wants a garden, then she’ll have to do the work herself.”
“You won’t let me help her because you don’t like her.”
Jase dug through the tools, reluctant to admit there might be some truth in his son’s accusation. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. But we like her. She’s nice. And she’s really funny, too. She’s always saying stuff or doing stuff that makes us laugh.”
Yeah, Jase thought, keeping his back to his son. He’d noticed those qualities in her, too. As well as a few others. “Whether she’s nice or not, isn’t the point. Getting your chores done is.”
Clay’s voice took on a pleading tone. “Don’t run her off, Dad. Please? We like her.”
Jase spun to look at his son. “Run her off? Where’d you get a crazy notion like that?”
Clay lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. But if you’re mean to her, she won’t want to stay around here long.”
Which might be best for them all, Jase affirmed silently, then narrowed a suspicious eye at his son. “You wouldn’t have a crush on the new nanny, would you?”
Heat flamed on Clay’s cheeks. “Heck no! She’s way too old for me.”
Jase turned back to the workbench. “You wouldn’t be the first male to fall head over bootheels for an older woman. She’s young and fairly attractive.”
“Fairly attractive?” Clay echoed. “Dad, she’s a hottie!”
Jase angled his head to look at his son, his brow furrowing. “Hottie?”
“Well, yeah,” Clay said, his cheeks turning a brighter red. “A looker. You know…a babe.”
Shocked to discover that his son was aware of the finer points of the opposite sex, Jase picked up a wrench, and began to clean it. “You shouldn’t be noticing things like that,” he said gruffly.
Chase snorted a laugh. “Shoot. I’d have be to blind not to notice.”
Irritated by his son’s obvious attraction to the nanny, but unsure why, Jase gave his chin a jerk toward the door. “Best get after those chores.”
Clay stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled dejectedly.
Jase angled his head to watch his son pull the feed bucket from its nail on the wall and noticed for the first time the slight swell of muscles on the boy’s arms, the length of his stride as he headed for the barn door.
Frowning, he stared after him, wondering what had happened to the pint-size kid with the gangly legs and the too-long arms. The one who had always claimed girls were stupid.
The one who had once looked up at his daddy with hero worship in his eyes.
Jase had never considered his house small. Fact was, his home was a spacious two-story built by his parents prior to his own birth, and could adequately accommodate a family of ten or more without putting a hardship on anyone in the house.
But ever since the new nanny’s arrival, his house seemed to have shrunk to the size of a cracker box, as had the rest of his ranch. He couldn’t take a step without running into her. Literally.
He couldn’t count the number of times he’d bumped into her in the house or when stepping out of the barn, which invariably led to physical contact of some description. A hand on her arm to steady her, or one of her hands braced against his chest to prevent him from mowing her down on those occasions when he’d round a corner unaware of her presence.
And those brief, physical contacts were beginning to get on his nerves.
He’d known he wasn’t going to like having a stranger in his house. He’d known, too, that having one who was so young and who was…well…such a hottie as his son had described her, might create a problem or two. But he hadn’t been prepared for the amount of time he would waste thinking about her instead of working, wondering where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing.
As far as he’d been able to determine, her wardrobe consisted of cutoff jeans, tank tops and other equally revealing articles of clothing. If that wasn’t distracting enough, he’d discovered she had a habit of humming while she worked that never failed to draw his gaze…and usually to a part of her anatomy that he had no business looking at.
And tonight was no exception.
With the kids already in bed for the night, he and Annie had the downstairs to themselves. And, though he kept his face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading, he was painfully aware of her exact location, which was, at the moment, less than five feet from his recliner and the tips of his boots. A laundry basket at her side, she sat on the floor folding towels…and humming an irritatingly cheerful little tune.
She glanced up, caught him staring and cocked her head, a questioning smile curving her lips. He quickly ducked his head behind the paper again and flipped the page, pretending to be engrossed in the day’s news.
After a moment, he worked up the courage to peek over the top of the newspaper again and caught her just as she rocked up on one hip to stretch to place a folded towel onto the growing stack at her side. At the movement, the hem of her shorts crawled higher on her leg, revealing the thin, white elastic band of her panties and a peek of the lighter-toned skin on her rump that the sun hadn’t seen. A low moan rose in his throat, as he stared, all but strangled by the sight.
“Did you say something?”