“Then what makes you think the things I need to get done are different?” She stood up to fold the clothes she had worn the day before and stuffed them into the shopping bag. “You don’t have any idea what I have to do or what might need my immediate attention.”
He felt as if he had stepped into a minefield—any way he went could prove explosive. “I didn’t mean to imply that your concerns are less important than mine.” Suddenly irritated with her short temper, he set her little boy on his feet and watched Seth walk over to his mother, then he rose from the rocking chair. “I just meant that whatever you need to do will have to wait until after the water recedes again. And before this escalates into something that could make the remainder of your stay a pain in my...” Pausing, he looked down at the toddler gazing up at him. He wasn’t about to add a word to the kid’s vocabulary that she could take him to task over. “Make the remainder of your stay difficult, I think I’ll go see what I can rustle up for our supper.” Walking out into the hall, he turned back. “I’ll be up later to help you and Seth downstairs. And don’t even think about trying it on your own. A broken neck won’t help you get away from here any faster.”
Before she had a chance to tie into him over something else, he closed the door. He descended the stairs and went into the kitchen to see what he could find for them to eat.
“So much for trying to be a nice guy,” he muttered as he opened the refrigerator to remove packages of deli meats and condiments. Slamming the food down onto the kitchen island, he turned to get a loaf of bread from the bread box on the counter. “If she fell down the stairs she’d probably find a way to blame me and then sue my ass off.”
“Do you need me to help with dinner, Malloy?”
When he turned back, Heather and her son stood just inside the doorway. Closing his eyes for a moment, T.J. tried to shore up his patience.
“You didn’t listen to a dam...dang thing I said, did you?” he asked, opening his eyes to look directly at her. “As weak as you are you shouldn’t have tried the stairs on your own. Did you even consider that you or your little boy could have fallen and been seriously hurt?”
“I’m not a hothouse flower. I can do things on my own. I have been doing things on my own. Besides, we took it slow and I held on to the railing,” she said, shrugging one slender shoulder. “As you can see, Seth and I made it to the bottom without incident.”
He shook his head at her stubbornness. “Do me a favor and don’t try it on your own again. I’d rather you didn’t tempt fate.”
“I’ll think about it.” She was silent for a minute before she asked bluntly, “Why are you being so nice to me and my son? Why do you care what happens to us?”
T.J. stared at her for a moment. He supposed he could understand her wariness. Before last night the only times she had seen him were under less than favorable circumstances. He had been returning her errant stallion—the one who had covered his mares and ruined his breeding program for more than a year—and hadn’t really cared to be overly polite.
“I think before we go any further, I need to explain something,” he said seriously. “All those times I had to bring your horse back to you, I was angry that he’d covered several of my mares. I raise and train reining horses and having them bred by a rogue stallion set my breeding program back by at least a year.” He shook his head. “But I could have been more civil when I asked you to keep him confined, instead of making demands and threatening to get the law involved.”
She stared at him for several long moments and just when he thought she was going to reject his apology and explanation, she nodded. “I can understand your frustration and I’m sorry about him causing a delay in your breeding program. I did try to keep him on the Circle W, but I think Magic tries to live up to his name. He can be a regular Houdini when it comes to getting out of his stall or around a fence.”
“Some horses are like that,” T.J. admitted. “Especially studs when there’s a harem of mares waiting for them.”
They were both silent for several long seconds before she spoke again. “As long as we’re clearing the air, I owe you another apology. You’ve been very accommodating and I really do appreciate all of your help. Earlier I was frustrated that Seth and I weren’t going to be able to go home, but that’s no excuse for taking it out on you. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll accept your apology if you’ll accept mine,” he said, meaning it. “I should have been more understanding about your horse getting out.”
A hint of a smile appeared as she led her little boy over to the opposite side of the kitchen island, where T.J. stood. “And just to put your mind at ease, if I had fallen down the stairs, I wouldn’t have sued you, Malloy.”
He couldn’t help but grin as he opened one of the cabinets above the counter and reached for a couple of sandwich plates. “The name’s T.J. and I’m glad I won’t have to be calling my lawyer.” As he started making their sandwiches, he added, “So what do you say we start over and try being a little more neighborly with each other from now on?”
When he noticed the twinkle in her blue eyes and the dimples on either side of her mouth as she smiled at him, he felt like he’d taken a sucker punch to the gut. He had to have been as blind as a damned bat not to have noticed how pretty she was before.
“I suppose being more congenial is better than wanting to shoot you on sight,” she said, oblivious to his thoughts.
T.J. laughed, releasing some of the tension suddenly gripping him. “Yeah, being friendly is preferable to dodging lead.” He pointed to the slices of meat and cheese in front of him. “My housekeeper is up in Dallas with her family until after the first of the year and I’m not very good at cooking. I hope you don’t mind sandwiches for supper.”
“A sandwich is fine for me.” She shook her head. “I still don’t have much of an appetite anyway. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to find something else for Seth. I try to make sure he gets his veggies every day.”
“When I sent Dan and his wife to Stephenville, Jane Ann got a few frozen dinners she said were especially for little kids.” T.J. nodded toward the refrigerator. “She said they weren’t her first choice for feeding toddlers, but they would be better for Seth than some of the things I’d probably try to feed him.” He couldn’t help but laugh. “I zapped one of them in the microwave for lunch and I can honestly say, he really enjoyed flinging the macaroni and mini meatballs at me.”
“He behaves pretty well for being almost two, but he still has his moments,” she said, laughing as she and the kid walked over to open the freezer door on the side-by-side refrigerator.
The sound of Heather’s laughter caused a warm feeling to spread throughout his chest. He didn’t have a clue why, but for some reason it felt good to make her laugh.
T.J. frowned as he finished the sandwiches and set them on the table. He and Heather were little more than strangers and he still wasn’t convinced they could be friends. Why did he care one way or the other that he had made her laugh?
He wasn’t sure what his problem was, but he decided that some things were better left unexplored. He was already having enough trouble with the fact that Heather and her son hadn’t been on the Dusty Diamond a full twenty-four hours and he’d noticed—even when she was at her worst with the flu and wearing a baggy set of sweats—that she was sexy as sin. If that wasn’t proof enough that he was one extremely disturbed hombre, he didn’t know what was.
* * *
“This is a very interesting family room,” Heather said when T.J. showed her and Seth around his house after they finished dinner. “But I think this would come closer to qualifying as a man cave than a place where a family gathers.”
He chuckled. “That’s what I usually call it, but I thought it might sound a little more inviting if I referred to it as the family