“Well,” she finally said, “I take care of myself and Mac and I don’t take orders well.”
“Then this should be interesting,” Lucy murmured, and Jillian was pretty sure her friend was amused by the whole situation.
* * *
The apartment was clean.
That was the best Jesse could say about it the following morning. Hell, when he’d first suggested this place, he’d remembered the apartments being better than this. Bigger. Less...institutional. With Jillian and her daughter at his side, Jesse felt like apologizing for suggesting this apartment in the first place.
“It’s perfect.” Jillian walked farther into the numbingly boring, impersonal space.
“Put your glasses on,” he muttered.
She whipped around to look at him. “I don’t wear glasses. I see it clearly enough and this will be fine. It’s got a lot of windows, so it’s nice and bright.”
“Which just makes me wonder why you’re not seeing what I am when I look at this place. It’s like a prison cell,” he added, letting his gaze slide around the one big room.
At one end, there was a small, but complete kitchen, with a fridge, microwave, stove and dishwasher. The countertop was serviceable black, the cabinets were painted white and the sink was stainless steel. On the opposite side of the room was a double bed and against the front wall was a couch with a chair pulled up alongside and a tiny coffee table in front of it. There was a small bathroom with a tub/shower off the main room and he guessed the other doors were for the closet. Which pretty much described the whole place.
A beige, claustrophobic closet.
“Know a lot about prison cells, do you?” she asked.
He shot her a quick look. “Not personally, but I’ve seen movies. This would make a good set for one of them.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she argued. “A little paint, a few rugs and a bright quilt will make it shine.”
“Shine?” he repeated dubiously. He walked toward the kitchen—took him four steps—and turned around at the sound of bedsprings squeaking. Mac was jumping up and down on the mattress, a gleeful look on her little face. Leave it to a kid. Even in a cell, they’d find a way to have fun.
“Mac, baby,” Jillian cooed, “don’t jump on the bed...”
“Might fall apart,” Jesse muttered, scowling as he looked around the room again.
Jillian scooped Mac up in her arms, then turned to face him. “It’s perfectly fine for us.”
“The whole place could fit inside my living room.” He shoved both hands into his jeans pockets.
She flushed at that and said, “Not all of us need that much room.”
“Not all of us want to live in a box, either,” he countered.
“Really?” She tipped her head to one side and stared at him. “This was your idea, remember?”
“Don’t remind me,” he muttered darkly. When he got back to the ranch, he was going to talk to Will about this building. Get someone in here, a designer or something to make these places less...depressing.
His gaze fixed on the woman watching him. Today, she wore yoga pants that looked as though they’d been painted onto her long, long legs and defined a figure he’d only guessed at before. She had a dancer’s body, he thought, slim, but curvy in all the right places. The long-sleeved red shirt she wore over those black pants strained across breasts he’d really like to get his hands on and that tail of wavy blond hair hung over one shoulder as if drawing an arrow he didn’t need to the breasts he was thinking too much about. Her hazel eyes were more green than blue today and he wondered what that said about her mood.
“Jesse!” Mac leaned out from her mother’s grasp and held both arms out to him.
Dutifully, he stepped forward and plucked the girl off her mother’s hip.
“You don’t have to hold her,” Jillian said, as if apologizing for her daughter.
“If I had to, I wouldn’t want to,” he said, and turned to look at the little girl clinging to him. She tugged at him, as completely as Brody did. But with Mac, he didn’t feel the twin tug of guilt that he did with his nephew. “What do you think, Mac? You want to stay here or go back to the ranch?”
“Horsies!”
Grimly, he nodded. “That settles it. You can stay at the ranch until you find a better place. There’s plenty of room there and—”
“No,” Jillian told him.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t hear that word often, do you?” she asked. “Well, you’ll have to deal with it. Mac isn’t even two yet. Of course she wants to be with the horses, but she’s not the one making decisions for our family. We’ll be staying right here.”
He saw the stubborn glint in her eyes and knew she’d dig her heels in on this, so he let it go. For now. But the damn truth was, she and Mac could stay at the ranch with no problem. There was the main house, his mother’s cabin, a couple guest cottages...more than enough room for one woman and a tiny girl, and if they were there, Jesse wouldn’t have to feel like he’d dropped them off in a dump.
“It’s not a dump,” she said, and he blinked. Had he said that last part aloud?
“You’re not that hard to read,” Jillian explained.
That made him frown. No man liked to be told he was clear as glass, and Jesse more than most had always prided himself on his poker face. Unless he wanted them to, no one knew what he was thinking. Well, until today.
“Dump!” Mac cried, clapping her hands.
He laughed shortly. “She agrees with me.”
“Again,” Jillian pointed out. “She’s a baby.” Then, turning around, she plopped both hands on her hips and gave the whole apartment a thorough look-see. Took her about ten seconds.
“I’ll get a couple of rugs, but the hardwood floors are gorgeous.”
“Not very big,” he said.
“I’ll paint the walls a pretty green, I think...”
“Won’t need much.”
“I’ll get a crib for Mac and put it at the foot of the bed...”
“Don’t get a big one.”
She inhaled and sighed heavily, ignoring him. “Maybe a little table and two chairs...”
“Very little table.”
“You know,” she said, suddenly spinning around to face him, fire in her eyes and battle on her features. “You’re not being helpful.”
“I’m not trying to be,” he said flatly. “This isn’t much bigger than that motel you and Mac have been staying at.”
“It’s big enough. I’ll get that job, take my time, look around and find something else when I’m ready.”
“You should be ready now,” he argued.
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“I’m not giving you an order. If I were, you’d follow it.”
“Is that right?” She actually laughed and if he hadn’t been so irritated, he’d have been charmed. That deep voice of hers sounded even sexier when she was laughing. Her eyes lit up and that incredible mouth of hers moved into a smile that was too damn seductive.
“You think a lot of yourself,”