Then again, he never should have kissed her either. Even if it hadn’t been technically a kiss.
She flipped the dough and kneaded it again, welcoming the rhythmic motion. It was almost therapeutic the way her arm muscles moved and flexed as she pushed the dough around the board. She tended to cook when she needed to empty her mind. And her mind was plenty full.
But so far it wasn’t working. Things around the Diamond place were tense. Ty complicated matters—and not just for her. Virgil had been irritable lately, growling at her during his exercises and wearing a scowl more often than a smile. She had half a mind to sit the both of them down and tell them to talk rather than stomp around beating their chests. There was clearly some sort of power struggle at work and it wasn’t good for Virgil. It wasn’t her place to say anything, though. And sheer embarrassment kept her from offering Ty more than a quiet hello.
She’d fallen quite under his spell while dancing. Their bodies had been touching. Her hands paused over the dough for a minute, remembering. On one hand, it had been a stunning victory over her personal-space phobia. But it had also been a huge mistake. Come on—Ty Diamond? And it had been in front of half of Cadence Creek. She gave her head a shake.
She employed the rolling pin next, rolling the dough out exactly half an inch thick. The more Ty stayed out of her way the better. Virgil needed to stay focused on his rehabilitation, and Ty made Clara feel …
Well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He made Clara feel, full stop. She’d gotten as caught up as any other woman in the romance of the wedding, wooed by the adoring looks Sam and Angela shared, the soft music, the beautiful flowers and pretty dresses. That was the only explanation that made any sense at all.
Clara applied the cookie cutter to the dough with a vengeance, cutting circles and plopping them on a cookie sheet. In the clear light of day she realized he had felt sorry for her. That stung, but she should have retained a little dignity rather than fleeing. She had no one to blame but herself.
She heard the front door shut. Molly couldn’t be back already, Sam and Angela were going to be in Ottawa on their honeymoon for another week, and no one else would walk in without knocking. That left Ty. Speak of the devil.
“Morning,” he said, coming through to the kitchen in his socked feet. Buster, the family retriever, trotted in on Ty’s heels and rubbed up against Clara’s leg to say hello with a wag of his tail.
“Go lie down, Buster,” Clara said firmly. “Last thing I need is you in my biscuit dough.”
The dog obediently found his bed in the corner and curled up on it.
Ty looked around, saw Virgil sleeping, and an indulgent smile curved his lips. She looked down to cover her surprise. The smile changed his face completely, softening his jaw and cheekbones, erasing years off his face and making it appear almost boyish.
Clara slid the pan into the oven, determined to finally put things on an even keel. “Good morning, Tyson.” She deliberately kept her voice pleasant and impersonal.
He tilted his head, studying her as she straightened, brushing off her hands. “Ty, remember? Unless I’m in trouble, it’s Ty.” The smile changed, his lips curving in a devilish grin. “Does calling me Tyson mean you’re still mad?”
In trouble? He was trouble. It would have been easier if he hadn’t smiled, she realized. His smile was the one thing she couldn’t get out of her head. At the wedding it had been warm, intimate and slightly lopsided as though he was sharing a joke. The warmth of it had extended to his eyes, the brown-as-molasses depths of them with sundrenched crinkles in the corners.
She avoided his gaze and set the timer on the oven instead. He thought she was mad? Embarrassed, yes. Awkward—definitely. Angry? Well, maybe a little. He shouldn’t have rubbed his lips over her temple like that. It was presumptuous. It was …
Glorious. It had made her feel feminine and alive. Lordy, but he was a distraction! She wished he’d get out of the kitchen and back to the barns so she could focus better.
“Miss Ferguson?”
She was surprised that he persisted in addressing her so formally—to the rest of the family she was just Clara. His sober tone turned her head and she bit down on her lip at the sight of him, his weight on one hip, all well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, the grin no longer in sight. He wore a baseball cap. The curved peak made him seem—for the second time in as many minutes—ridiculously young. She had to stop noticing and simply do her job. It was the most important thing right now, her ticket to a new life. She was saving as much as she could so she could afford her own place. And Ty Diamond wasn’t going to screw that up for her.
“Did you want to ask me something?”
He hesitated so long that Clara fought the urge to squirm. The timer on the oven ticked down painfully slowly. Virgil, asleep in his favorite chair in the living room, let out a random snore. It broke the silence, and alleviated a bit of the tension. Clara let out a soft laugh as Virgil snored again and shifted in his chair.
“Your father always falls asleep during his crossword,” she said quietly. She wasn’t quite sure what to call Virgil in reference to Ty. He was Ty’s adopted dad but also his uncle by blood. And the tension between the two sometimes made her wonder if they even acknowledged each other as relatives at all.
“He gets tired easily, doesn’t he?”
She nodded. “The stroke took a lot out of him. He’s made wonderful progress, though. He did great in his physio this morning. Even if it did take a lot of prodding and a fair amount of sass.”
“From you or from him?” Ty’s eyes seemed to twinkle at her.
“From him, of course. He’s been irritable lately.” She met his gaze with a look that told him she knew the source of Virgil’s displeasure.
“That’s probably my fault,” Ty admitted. “He’s changed more than I expected. Sam warned me. About a lot of things.”
His gaze was steady on her again and the ridiculous fluttering she’d felt at the wedding came dancing back. What had Sam warned him about? That Virgil was more stubborn than ever? That things weren’t exactly calm and peaceful around Diamondback Ranch? Or had he warned Ty of something else—about someone else? A sudden thought struck. Had Ty asked her to dance because he’d been put up to it?
Each time she thought of that night she regretted it more.
“I’m just his nurse,” Clara replied, turning away and taking the rolling pin and empty biscuit bowl to the sink.
“I didn’t realize nurse duties included baking.” He stepped forward and snuck a small bit of raw biscuit dough from the countertop, popping it in his mouth.
Clara felt a sharp and sudden pain in her heart, watching him sneak the scrap of dough. How many times had she and her brother done that as kids? Bread dough, cookie dough, it hadn’t mattered. Their mother would scold but never yell, saying that she hoped they had children someday who did the same thing and drove them crazy. The memory sent a bitter pang through Clara’s heart. Life had been so uncomplicated then.
Clara missed her family terribly. She’d followed Jackson to Alberta when he’d claimed he’d make his money in the oil patch and set them up for life. She’d been blind and stupid to leave all the good things behind to chase empty promises. But it was too late to go back home now. How could she possibly explain the changes over the years that had passed? No, the gulf was too wide. Saskatchewan was only a province away but it might as well have been a continent.
“I like to cook, and it gives Molly more of a chance to get out now and again,” Clara explained. Besides, if she wasn’t here at Diamondback, she was home at Butterfly House, and lately she’d felt more and more dissatisfied with that arrangement. She wanted her own place. Her own