Maybe a little perfume.
The message she wanted to send was, Welcome to Stone Creek, not, Hey, big guy, what do you say we hire a sitter, slip out of here, and go find ourselves a place to get it on?
She blushed, because the second version wasn’t without a certain appeal, then realized she hadn’t responded to Byron’s last statement. “Okay, then,” she told him, ignoring Nathan, tugging open the screen door with a quick motion of one hand and holding it open with her hip. “See you tomorrow.”
Byron nodded and went back to snipping branches off the maple tree.
BY 5:59 P.M., MELISSA was ready to serve supper—the game hens, warming in the seldom-used oven, filled her small, bright kitchen with their savory aroma. The cobbler, already thawed and heated through, sat cooling on the counter nearest the stove, covered by a clean dishtowel. The antique table, which too often served as a catchall for newspapers and junk mail, looked like something straight off the cover of Country Living magazine.
Melissa took a moment to admire the crisp white tablecloth, the green-tinted glass jar in the center, spilling over with perfect white peonies from the bushes on either side of the front steps. The plates, purchased on impulse in, of all places, an airport gift shop, were decorated with checks and flowers and polka dots.
She tilted her head to one side, considering the look. Fussy, yes. Feminine, definitely. Cheerful, to the max.
But was it too fussy, feminine and cheerful?
After all, this wasn’t a reunion of her high school cheerleading squad; she was entertaining a little boy and a grown man.
And what a man. There should have been a law.
Melissa chewed briefly on one fingernail, fretting. With the exception of the flowers in the jar, none of this was at all like her—the fancy dishes had been gathering dust in the cupboard above the refrigerator for a couple of years, she hadn’t cooked the food and she had exactly one tablecloth to her name—this one. It didn’t even have any sentimental value, that tablecloth—it hadn’t been passed down through generations of O’Ballivans, like the various linens Ashley and Olivia so prized. No, Melissa had bought it on clearance at a discount store, just in case she might need it someday—her share of the heirlooms were stored in a chest, out on the ranch. Did she have time to drive out there and grab some?
Deep breath, she instructed herself silently.
Just as she drew in air, a rap sounded at the front door. They’re here.
No time to tone down—or tone up—the decorations now, obviously.
Melissa, feeling especially womanly in her summery dress, a multicolored Southwestern print with touches of turquoise and magenta, gold and black, went to greet her company.
Matt stood on the porch with his nose pressed into the screen door, his damp hair already beginning to rebel against a recent combing, springing up into a rooster tail at the back of his head and swirling into little cowlick eddies here and there.
Melissa’s heart melted at the sight of him; a smile rose up within her and spilled across her face, warm on her mouth. Of course she was aware of Steven, standing behind the boy—how could she not have been aware?—but she didn’t make eye contact right away.
No, she needed a few more deep breaths before she could risk that.
So she concentrated on Matt—unlocking and opening the screen door, stepping back so he could spill into her house, all energy and eagerness and boy.
“You look very handsome,” she told the child, resisting a motherly urge to smooth down the rooster tail with a light pass of her hand.
Matt’s smile seemed to encompass her, like an actual embrace. “And you look beautiful!” he responded.
“Amen,” Steven said huskily. That single word coursed right over Matt’s head to lodge itself in Melissa like a velvet arrow.
Her throat caught, and her gaze betrayed her, going straight to him long before she was ready.
Steven wore jeans, a little newer than the ones he’d had on earlier, along with polished black boots and a white, collarless shirt of the sort men favored back in the Old West days. His hair was damp from a recent shower, like Matt’s, but there were no cowlicks and no rooster tails, and he smelled like a field of newly sprouted clover after a soft rain.
A free-fall sensation seized Melissa, buffeted the breath from her lungs, as though she were skydiving without a parachute, or riding a runaway roller coaster.
The feeling was stunning. Terrifying, in fact.
And categorically wonderful.
“I hope you’re both hungry,” she heard herself say, and the normality of her tone amazed her, because on the inside, she was still being swept along, helter-skelter, like a swimmer caught in a fast current.
“We’re starved,” Matt answered, looking around the living room, as alert as a detective scanning for clues.
Steven smiled and cleared his throat slightly, raising one eyebrow when Matt turned to look up at him.
“Well, we are,” the boy insisted, folding his small arms.
Steven grinned, unwittingly—or wittingly—sending a charge of electricity through Melissa. His eyes, so very blue and with a touch of lavender to them that reminded her of summer twilights and late-blooming lilacs, ranged idly over her, pausing here and there, lingering to light small fires under her skin. It seemed lazy-slow, that look, but she knew it couldn’t have lasted more than a fraction of a moment.
“Then let’s get you some supper,” Melissa told Matt, extra glad he was there, and not just because she was already so fond of him. If she’d been alone with Steven Creed, considering her strange state of mind, she might have jumped the man’s bones right there in the living room.
Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration. But she was definitely attracted to him, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was on dangerous ground.
Remembering her duties as a hostess, she led the way into the kitchen.
Matt started toward the table the moment they entered the room, but Steven caught the child lightly by one shoulder and stopped him.
“Where do we wash up?” Steven asked, looking at Melissa.
She pointed toward the hallway just to the left of the stove. “The bathroom is that way,” she said.
The Creed men disappeared in the direction she’d indicated, then returned a couple of minutes later.
Melissa was just setting out the main course. Since she didn’t own a platter, she’d left the food in Ashley’s freezer-to-oven casserole dish.
“Are those chickens?” Matt asked, eyeing the halved game hens dubiously.
Steven chuckled. “Yes,” he said mildly. “They’re chickens.” And then he caught Melissa’s eye, waiting for something.
After an awkward moment, Melissa pointed to one of the chairs. Steven pulled it back, let Matt scramble up onto the seat.
“Can I eat with my fingers?” Matt wanted to know.
Steven answered without taking his eyes off Melissa. “Thanks for asking,” he said, in an easy drawl. “But no, Tex, you can’t eat with your fingers.”
It finally came home to Melissa that Steven wasn’t going to sit down until she was seated. She moved toward the middle chair, oddly embarrassed, waited for Steven to pull it out for