* * *
THAT DAY THE work in the field took longer than Hank anticipated. The water pressure was down to a dribble out there, and the fix was more complicated than they’d originally thought. He and the men didn’t ride back to the canteen until ten past five, and they’d have to head back out after they ate for another go at it. Hank was both hungry and nervous. There were thirty-five hungry workers needing a decent meal, and he’d left a woman they didn’t know in charge of the kitchen, hoping for the best.
Hank bounced along the gravel road that meandered back up toward the barracks and the canteen. The radio was on low, a country song filling up the space between the roar of the engine and the rattle of equipment in the back. He’d been thinking about Avery the entire time he was searching for that blasted leak, telling himself repeatedly he was just worried about the food. But it was less noble than that. He’d never thought of himself as a guy with a type, but if he had one, she was it. Slender, cute, fair. Maybe it was just the fact that there weren’t a lot of other women around here.
Hank parked his truck in front of the building, hopped out and slammed the door with a satisfying bang. The canteen had two large, old-fashioned wagon wheels on either side of the double doors, which were already propped open. Some of the men had arrived ahead of him, their truck already parked in a spot in front. His stomach rumbled. Beef stew would hit the spot tonight. It had been a long day, but the job wasn’t yet done, and he needed a solid meal.
As Hank stepped inside, he was met with the murmur of voices, some laughter, the clink of cutlery—all normal. The smell, though... It wasn’t just the press of sweaty bodies, it was something else he couldn’t quite identify...
“Hey, Hank.” Bernie, one of the ranch hands sat in front of a bowl of stew, two dinner rolls next to it. “Have you seen the new cook?”
“Yeah, I showed her around,” Hank replied.
“Well, thank you for hiring that one,” he said with a grin. “She’s hot.”
There was a chorus of laughter and a few crude comments. Hank shot them a flat stare. Hot or not—and he wasn’t arguing how good-looking she was—she wasn’t here to be ogled. She was here to cook. There were workplace rules about sexual harassment and about fraternizing with the staff, rules he was following, too. When Louis’s wife, Carla, had died in that riding accident, it had been because a couple of workers were literally having a roll in the hay. Her death was preventable, and while those workers had been fired, Louis set up an ironclad rule about workplace dalliances.
“How’s the food?” Hank asked. He leaned closer to the bowl and discovered the source of the “off” smell. “Oh, man...”
“It’s—” Bernie shrugged. “It’s served by the pretty redhead. I’ll have seconds.”
The man across the table from them, Ivan, was chewing a piece of beef, his jaw moving in slow rotations. Hank paused and watched him chew for another ten seconds.
“You gonna swallow that?” Hank asked.
Ivan slowly shook his head. “It’s like leather,” he said past the meat in his mouth. “I can’t get it down.”
There didn’t seem to be any open complaining, interestingly enough. Had a man served that meal, there’d have been a riot. Avery stood across the room, bending down to offer more bread to one of the ranch hands, whose eyes were fixed on her cleavage. Her red hair tumbled down in front of her shoulders—no hairnet, apparently—and her smile was bright. This was a rough bunch of guys, and Avery probably had no idea what she was getting herself into here. He headed toward her, and when Avery saw him, she shot him a smile.
“Hi,” he said, clapping a hand onto the shoulder of the ranch hand who had been ogling Avery’s chest. The man dropped his gaze to his bowl immediately.
“Served on time,” she said, looking quite satisfied with herself. “And everyone seems to love it.”
“Mmm. Delicious,” the ranch hand said on cue, and Hank suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Yeah, they all seemed to be willing to compliment the meal, if only to get a little of the cook’s personal attention. And for that, Hank couldn’t blame them entirely. There wasn’t a whole lot of female contact out here, and they had to wait until they went into Hope on their days off for a beer at the Honky Tonk in order to get a woman to look at them straight. He’d have to have a word with Avery in private.
“You must be starving,” Avery said. “Let me get you a bowl.”
“Sure,” he said. “In the kitchen.”
She shot him a quizzical look, but complied and they headed through the swinging door into relative privacy. The kitchen was hot from cooking, and the pot was still on the stove. She stepped onto a stool next to the stove so she could reach inside and she scooped him up a big bowl of stew. He grabbed a bun and took a bite of the crusty roll, holding the proffered bowl of stew in the other hand for the time being.
“You, too,” he said, nodding to the pot. “I couldn’t possibly try this before you do.”
Avery bent back over the pot to fill her own bowl, and he watched her move. She was feminine—an odd thing to notice about a woman. Weren’t all women feminine? But there was something soft and lithe about her, something that should smell like flowers—even though he couldn’t smell anything but that stew right now.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Avery said, picking up a spoon from the counter. “I was a little worried at first—” She dipped the spoon into the bowl and blew on it a couple of times before she took a bite. Her expression changed as she pulled the spoon from her mouth, and she chewed slowly.
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s, um...” She swallowed. “I think something went wrong.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “What did you do to it?”
“I followed the directions!” She shot him an annoyed look. “To the T, might I add. Beef stew. I have no idea what went wrong. Except there wasn’t any red wine.”
“Yeah, we don’t tend to cook with red wine out here,” he said wryly.
“I may have replaced the red wine with red wine vinegar.”
He grimaced. Vinegar in beef stew? What had she been thinking? But she looked so let down. Avery ran her hand through her hair, tugging those loose waves away from her face. It was the disappointment in those green-flecked eyes. She’d actually thought she’d done well, and the other guys had let her believe it. He normally wouldn’t make much effort for a cook’s feelings...
“Pass me some salt,” he said with a sigh.
“You’re going to eat it?” she asked. “I’m sure I can rummage up something else for you.”
“It’s what’s for dinner,” he replied. “I’ll eat what my men are eating.”
And he wasn’t pleased about that. He was hungry—as were all the guys out there. They’d worked a long day, and they needed a decent meal at the end of that. He was grumpy, he was hungry and the glop in his bowl was possibly the worst stew he’d eaten in his life. And that included cattle drives where the one who drew the shortest straw had to cook.
“Breakfast will be better,” she said. “Eggs, bacon, corn bread...that’s hard to ruin.”
He’d thought the same thing about the stew.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll meet you here at 4:00 a.m., and we’ll work on it together. We’ll have to make the pack lunches, too. At least that way, if the guys don’t like the grub, they can blame me, too.”
And at the very least, they’d get an edible lunch.
“But they seem to like it...” She looked toward the swinging door, her pale brows knitted. Had she really not figured