Jeb shook hands with her. “Real nice to meet you, Ms. Upton.” Jeb turned to Ryan. “I’ll be going now. See you later at the garage.”
“Sure,” Ryan replied without taking his eyes from Jessica. Her smile must have short-circuited his brain, because he asked, “Was your husband unable to come this morning?”
He received an even bigger smile that made him weak in the knees. Hands down, she was the most beautiful applicant he’d ever interviewed.
“There is no husband, because I’m divorced.”
“But you’re wearing a wedding ring,” he said, noticing the wide gold band with a row of diamonds and an engagement ring that had to be four carats. Her red nails were long and well shaped, indicating the care of a professional.
“I’m not ready to date anyone,” she said, losing some of her sparkle. “I thought the wedding ring might head off unwanted invitations.”
He seriously doubted it would head off all of them, but he merely nodded.
“I heard about this opening from someone I know in Dallas and I talked the agency into letting me have this interview. Please don’t be angry with them. Sometimes I can be persuasive.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure he couldn’t say no.” The remark came out before Ryan could stop it. Where was his professionalism? It was getting blown out of the water by someone so enticing that she dazzled him and made him feel sixteen years old again.
He should reinforce that he hired only couples and send her away now. The thought was fleeting. He wasn’t going to hire her, but he did want to interview her. Heck, he wanted to date her.
“Come inside to my office.”
“Here’s a résumé,” she said, handing him a manila folder. “I mailed a copy after I inquired about this job.”
Tucking the folder beneath his arm, he held the door for her to enter. He hadn’t looked at her résumé, tossing it because the agency he used handled the screening of applicants.
When she entered the house, Ryan inhaled a sweet, enticing scent. As she passed him, he couldn’t help noticing the sway to her hips. He took another long look, noticing her pale blond hair, which had a slight wave and swung across her shoulders with each step she took. Her silky hair was pinned up on the sides of her head.
Wisdom told him to send her packing. She shouldn’t even be here and he shouldn’t be showing her to his office. She might be nothing but trouble and she didn’t look as if she had ever worked for anyone a day in her life. Despite all that, he followed her inside, where she turned to look expectantly at him.
“My office is in the study down the hall. Come with me. Did you drive from Dallas this morning?”
“I stayed with friends who know you—the Jimsons. Pru and I have been friends for a long time. They told me you’re looking for a cook and the agency to contact. The agency highly recommended you.”
“Where’s your home, Ms. Upton?”
She smiled at him. “Please, just call me Jessica. Ms. Upton sounds as if my mother is nearby.”
Smiling in return, he nodded. “Sure, Jessica. You can call me Ryan.”
“I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and that’s where my family is.”
“Here’s the study.”
He waved his arm and let her precede him into a room with dark walnut walls and a handwoven Navajo area rug with a red-and-black design on a white background. She crossed the room to stop at one of the brown leather wingback chairs facing his desk.
He turned the other leather chair slightly to face her. “Please be seated.”
Sitting, he glanced briefly as she crossed those fabulous legs. Unless he stopped looking at her, he was never going to resist the temptation to hire her.
“Where have you worked before?” he asked.
“I haven’t held a regular job, but I have done a lot of volunteer work for charities. I have them listed in my résumé.”
He opened the folder in his lap to glance at it and was surprised by the amount of time she had given to volunteering. “You’ve done a lot of charity work.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you want this job, Ms. Upton?”
“At this point in my life, this is a perfect job. I’ve been through a bad divorce. An emotional one. I want to go someplace new and quiet and for the coming year do something entirely different from what I’ve always done.”
Ryan thought about her answer. Everything in him said to get rid of her politely and quickly. If he kept her around, he would seduce her and eventually, when he was ready to say goodbye, it would be difficult. And they would say goodbye. His relationships were always over at some point. He had never had a serious relationship and this was not where or when he would start.
“You’re an attractive woman who could easily find a better-paying job in a big city where there are people and lots of things to do. You came from a city. Why would you bury yourself in a low-paying job in what is almost isolation out on my ranch?”
She smiled at him as if he were a slow learner and she was trying to encourage him. “Thank you for the compliment. I’m ready to be ‘buried’ somewhere with peace and quiet. I’m at a crossroads in my life and I need to think about my future and recover from my past. If I take this job, I can keep busy, earn some money, be away from everyone—namely my family and my ex—who would distract me while I try to chart my future.”
Logical answer, but he didn’t believe her. She was too pretty to need to bury herself. Memphis was big enough for her to escape her family and her ex, and if not Memphis, a lot of other big cities. She looked like a city person, not a cook on his ranch, where she wouldn’t see anyone, including him, for days on end. A small inner voice still persistently told him to get rid of her. She would never fit in as his cook and all he would get would be one headache after another.
“I have a business in Houston and am only on the ranch about a week out of every month. I pay my staff whether I’m here or not, but for a lot of the time you’d be on your own. What would you do?”
He received another dazzling smile that made him ignore the persistent inner voice that told him to end this interview.
“I’ll find some way to occupy my time,” she said. “That’s never been a problem and it will be even less of one now that I’m older.”
He looked at her résumé again and saw when she’d graduated from high school. Calculating quickly, he was surprised. She was twenty-six. From her looks, he would have guessed twenty-two.
“A year can be a long time. Way before the year is over, you may want to date again. You’ll meet only a limited number of men out here.”
“I can live with that,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Frankly, Ms. Up—er, Jessica, I don’t think—”
“Give me a chance and I promise you won’t regret it.”
Her silky voice wrapped around him and he guessed very few men could deny what she asked. He couldn’t imagine what killed her marriage.
He returned to reading the papers she had handed him, swiftly glancing over her transcript and looking more intently at her, trying to hide his surprise.
“You have almost a straight-A average and a degree in accounting. Accounting and cooking?”
“My dad steered all of his kids toward accounting. He said we could use it in whatever we do. I don’t know about that, but it was not difficult for me.”