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.
“What made you get into sheep ranching?” she decided to ask. There was no sense in wasting time getting the information she needed.
She glanced over at him when he didn’t say anything and felt heat thrum through her body when he shifted his gaze to her face. From his expression she could tell he was surprised by her question.
“Why do you want to know?”
He was a suspicious sort and she would add that to the list of his characteristics. “I’m just curious. You have a big spread and a good number of men to help you run things. Most people around here have cattle or horses, but you have sheep. Why?”
Taking his time, Ramsey pondered Chloe’s question. It was one he had asked himself many times and whenever he did he would always come up with the same answer. “Being a rancher was a dream my father and I shared from the time he took me with him to visit a friend of his in Maryland who owned a sheep farm. I couldn’t have been any more than twelve at the time. In college I majored in agriculture economics, so I would know everything there was to know about farming and ranching, although my plans were to join the family’s real estate business like everyone else. It was Dad’s intent to one day retire and just have a small flock of sheep, but he died before he had a chance to fulfill his dream.”
“I’m sorry, Ramsey.”
She had spoken quietly and he saw his sorrow reflected in her eyes. He quickly wondered why he had shared that with her. He wasn’t sure why he had answered her question at all. What was it about her that had made him feel comfortable enough with her to bare his soul? “Look, Chloe, what I need to talk to you about is—”
At that moment his cell phone went off. “Excuse me,” he said before fishing it out of his back pocket. “Yes?”
She watched, nearly mesmerized as a huge smile touched his face, curving his lips. If she hadn’t seen it, she would not have believed it. Did he reserve his frowns just for her?
“Dillon, when did you get in?” He paused. “No problem, I’m on my way.”
He quickly returned the phone to his jeans pocket and glanced over at her. “I need to run. We still need to talk. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” He turned to move toward the back door.
“I’ll be gone by then.”
He stopped and pivoted around and lifted a questioning brow while staring at her. “Gone where?”
There were those intense eyes again and she drew a breath. “Back to town.”
He leaned back against the counter again. “Did the agency not tell you that I hired you as a live-in cook? The men will be expecting another meal in the morning around five.”
“Five!”
“Yes.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Did your other cook live here?”
“No. But then I didn’t have to worry about her getting here early enough to have breakfast ready for my men. Nellie and her husband have a house less than ten miles away. She arrived every morning at three and left in the late afternoon.”
He then lifted a brow. “Just what did that employment agency tell you? This is shearing time here at the ranch and it happens only once a year. I own over three thousand sheep and have only a two-week window to get the wool off. Unlike a lot of sheep ranchers who hire a sheep shearing crew from year to year, my men are trained to do all the job duties here. That means they will work around the clock. I have to make sure they eat a hearty breakfast and are fed a good lunch. I can’t wake up tomorrow morning and worry about whether you’ll show up.”
“I’ll be back in the morning,” she heard herself say. “I promise.”
Ramsey frowned. Hadn’t he made up his mind that they could not stay under the same roof? Wasn’t it his intent to talk to her about remaining as his cook only until he’d found a replacement? So why was he making a big deal of her staying over tonight? He should be overjoyed that she was leaving.
He inwardly shrugged and figured he only cared because of his concern that she would not be here on time in the morning to feed his men. “I’m going to need you here on time, Chloe,” he said in a voice that sounded pretty damn curt even to his own ears.
“I said I would be here, didn’t I?” she all but snapped back in a tone that said he would get just as good as he gave.
His glare locked on her face and then he nodded stiffly. “I’m taking you at your word. Lock the door behind you when you leave and I’ll see you in the morning.” He then headed for the door.
He turned and met her gaze one more time and she didn’t release her breath until the door had closed behind him.
Three
“Please tell me you’re joking, Clo.”
Chloe sat her luggage down near her feet and turned to Lucia who had a worried look on her face. Chloe had decided to return to Ramsey’s place tonight instead of trying to find her way there again in the early morning when it would still be dark outside. “Come on, Lou, it’s not that serious. I’m doing Ramsey Westmoreland a favor and in the end he will be doing me a favor.”
Lucia rolled her eyes. “He won’t see things that way when he finds out what you’re really about. You’re not only invading his privacy, but you’re also being deceitful.”
“I’m not.”
“You are, too, and all hell is going to break loose when he learns the truth. I live in this town, you don’t. You’ll be back in sunny Florida and I’ll be here feeling the heat of the Westmorelands’ wrath. When it comes to anyone messing with one of them, they all stick together.”
Chloe crossed her arms beneath her breasts and gave her best friend a pointed look. “And which Westmoreland are you concerned with pissing off, Lucia?”
Chloe knew she had hit the jackpot when Lucia dropped her gaze and began looking everywhere but at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chloe had no intentions of believing that. “Yeah, right. You don’t want to make waves with the Westmorelands for a reason, so fess up. Which one is it? Ramsey?”
“No,” Lucia said quickly. “It’s no one.”
Chloe didn’t believe that any more than she believed there was a lost colony off the California coast. “Okay, Lou, this is Clo. You can’t lie straight even on your best days, so I’m going to ask you one more time, who is he and don’t waste my time telling me he’s not a Westmoreland.”
Reluctantly, Lucia met her gaze and then in a quiet and flat voice she said, “It’s Ramsey’s brother, Derringer.”
Chloe raised a brow. Her best friend’s expression was filled with so much love it almost hurt her to look at it. “Derringer Westmoreland? When did all this take place?”
She had known Lucia since her first year of college and the man’s name had never come up, yet judging by the expression on Lucia’s face whatever she felt for the man ran deep and had been there a long time.
A faint smile touched Lucia’s lips. “I’ve loved him forever.”
Chloe