After grabbing his hat off the hat rack, Callum rounded the table and halted in front of Ramsey and studied his features. “I hope you don’t plan on ruining things for the rest of us. We like her cooking. And we like her. We would like to keep her around, at least until Nellie comes back.”
Callum had quietly spoken his words, just for Ramsey’s benefit. Without glancing over at Callum, Ramsey said, “We’ll see.”
And for now that was all he would say on the matter. Yes, the woman had impressed him and his men with her cooking skills, and yes, she had carried herself in a professional way. But Callum had been right. Just like his men he hadn’t been able to stop looking at her and that wasn’t a good thing. He had been sitting at the table eating his lasagna and imagining eating her instead. His mind was so filled with lust it wasn’t funny, and the flame that burned deep inside him wasn’t amusing, either.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw the last of the men had gone, all but Callum, who threw him a daggered look before walking out the door and closing it behind him. Ramsey pulled in a deep, frustrated breath. The impression Chloe had already made on his men was not a good thing. Even if she stayed for two weeks she would have to leave when Nellie returned anyway.
He heard the rattling of the dishes and glanced over at Chloe, watching her as she cleared the table. His gaze slowly swept over her figure, liking the way the jeans fit across her backside. He figured her height was probably around five-eight and he would bet all the wool his sheep would be producing this year that she had long beautiful legs. The kind that would be a killer pair in a miniskirt.
He shook his head thinking about his fetish for seeing women in short skirts. He was a leg man all the way. So why was seeing this woman in jeans having basically the same effect?
Really it didn’t matter because he planned to let her go as soon as he could get in a replacement. Temptation was temptation and he would hate to suddenly develop sleepwalking tendencies knowing she would be in the guest bedroom down the hall from him.
Hell, such a thought no matter how tempting, didn’t sit well with him, mainly because he made the Double Creek Sheep Ranch one of the most successful in the United States. He’d done so by staying focused on what needed to be done and not by getting caught up in a woman. He didn’t intend to get caught up on one now.
He leaned against the counter, deciding not to interrupt what she was doing just yet. Not when he had her within his scope. Whether he liked it, he was enjoying the view.
* * *
The man was agitated about something, Chloe could sense it, but at the moment she refused to let him get on her last nerve. She had plenty of work to do and didn’t have time for a confrontation. After she was finished clearing the table she would break the news to Mr. Westmoreland that she was not his cook, that she had done him a favor and that she expected one in return.
The room was quiet, but she could hear his breathing, strong and steady. But even though she refused to look over at him, she was well aware he was looking at her, checking her out. And she knew he was paying a lot of attention to her backside, probably had his gaze locked on it real tight, which would account for the heat she actually felt on that part of her anatomy. She’d been told by more than one man that she had a nice derriere, curvy and shapely, just the way a man liked. Whoopie, she thought sarcastically.
But still, she would be the first to admit that just the thought that Ramsey Westmoreland’s gaze was on her bottom almost made her breath catch in her throat. His eyes, whenever she looked into them, were filled with intensity and she could actually feel that intensity now focused directly on her.
Not able to stand it a minute longer, she swung around and frowned deeply. “We can talk now.”
His dark eyes remained steady on her, even when he nodded and said, “All right. First I want to say you did a heck of a job with lunch today. The men were impressed and so was I.”
She blinked. A compliment hadn’t been what she’d been expecting. The man definitely had a way of delivering it with mixed emotions. His words were syrupy and sweet, while the texture of his voice was brooding. “Thank you, I’m glad everyone enjoyed it.”
“They also enjoyed you.” At the lift of her brow he clarified and said, “Enjoyed you being here I mean.”
She wondered where he was about to go with that comment and figured she would know soon enough. “I enjoyed being here as well,” she responded as she placed the dishes in the sink. It was time to come clean and let him know her real purpose for being there. “Mr. Westmoreland, I think that you—”
“Ramsey. I prefer you call me Ramsey. Everyone around here does. Some even call me Ram.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that.
“You find something amusing, Ms. Burton?”
She met his gaze and her smile widened even more. “You can call me Chloe, and what I find amusing is the fact that a ram is a male sheep and you are in the sheep business. Unique, don’t you think?”
He shrugged muscular shoulders. “Never gave it much thought.”
She lifted a brow. “Are you trying to tell me that no one has ever made the connection before?”
“If they did, they knew better than to mention it.”
Chloe wanted to just throw her hands up in the air and give up. It was quite evident that even when they were trying to hold a civil conversation they had the ability to rub each other the wrong way. That made her wonder about him, the man she wanted to be on the cover of Simply Irresistible. He looked better than chocolate cake oozing with deep, rich chocolate icing—her favorite—but it was becoming quite evident he was a complex man. She couldn’t help wonder what made Ramsey tick? What would it take to make him become relaxed, more laid-back? she wondered. Although she could see that around his men he was pretty mild-mannered and friendly. It was obvious they had a good working relationship while maintaining a degree of respect. That meant he was reserving his uptightness mainly for her. She wondered why.
The research she’d done indicated he dated when the mood or the urge probably hit him. Yet he didn’t have any steady woman in his life. His last serious relationship had been with the woman he’d become engaged to, a woman by the name of Danielle McKay. However, she had ruined what was to have been his wedding day by stopping the minister in the middle of the wedding and walking out. That had been over ten years ago. Surely he’d gotten over that incident by now.
In addition to the cover photo for the magazine, she wanted an interview with him and had a feeling getting him to talk would be just as difficult as getting him to agree to the cover photo. Talk about pulling teeth. She had planned to send one of her seasoned reporters to talk to him and now she could clearly see that just wouldn’t work.
Suddenly an idea popped into her head. She might as well go about killing two birds with one stone. She wanted him to do the magazine cover and she wanted an article on him as well. His profession intrigued her. For instance, why had he gotten into sheep ranching versus cattle or horse ranching?
An insider’s view of his operation might be good reading information to her readers. And the best way to find out everything she wanted to know about him was to hang around and get to know him for herself. The man was without a doubt masculine perfection and she wondered if there was more to Ramsey Westmoreland than a handsome face and a hard, muscular body.
Chloe nibbled on her lower lip. Now was the time to come clean and tell him the truth, but something was holding her back from doing so. He owed her for lunch today and she intended to collect, but she wanted more from him than just the photo cover. She wanted to interview him for a piece in the magazine as well. Women loved wool and she could do an article informing them of the entire process of getting it off the sheep and into the stores. At lunch a number of the shearers had explained how things were done, but she wanted to hear it from Ramsey.