Only 05 - Autumn Lover

all the captain wanted,” Elyssa said.
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “You?”
    “Yes.”
    Hunter shrugged. “So you should have given him a little of what you were giving Mickey. There’s plenty to go around. Ask any ‘working’ girl.”
    Elyssa’s temper flared.
    “All I ever gave Mickey was orders,” she said hotly.
    “Uh-huh,” Hunter said.
    His expression said he didn’t believe her.
    “Miss Penny,” Hunter said, his voice polite once again, “would you show me to an empty bedroom? Sassy said I was supposed to sleep in the big house.”
    Taken aback by Hunter’s attitude toward Elyssa, Penny just looked at the younger woman questioningly.
    “I told him to sleep inside because I didn’t want him shot to death like the last foreman,” Elyssa explained without looking away from Hunter. “Now, however, the idea has a positively wondrous allure.”
    Penny looked startled and amused at the same instant.
    “Put him in one of the empty rooms upstairs,” Elyssa said ungraciously. “The stairway creaks so much that no one can sneak up on him no matter how loud he snores.”
    “I don’t snore,” Hunter said.
    “Father used to say the same thing. But you know how it is when a man gets older, don’t you, Hunter?”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed.
    Penny was horrified.
    “Sassy,” Penny said, using Elyssa’s childhood nickname, “shame on you. You know how touchy men are about their age. Besides, Hunter is younger than Bill, and Bill is ten years younger than your father.”
    “Any man who thinks I’m a little girl must be old enough to snore,” Elyssa said sweetly.
    “I see,” Penny said, hiding her smile. “Well, you’ll have a chance to find out. I’m putting him in the room next to yours.”
    Uneasiness and something else streaked through Elyssa.
    “My parents’ room?” she asked. “Why?”
    “It has the only bed big enough to hold him,” Penny said matter-of-factly.
    Elyssa opened her mouth to argue, then shrugged.
    “If you snore,” she said to Hunter, “that big bed is going straight to the nursery at the far end of the house. You’ll love the rainbows and butterflies Mother painted on the walls.”
    An odd look went over Hunter’s face, a shadow of agony that touched Elyssa despite her anger with him. She wondered if he had lost children as well as his wife to the war. It would certainly explain the pain she had sensed beneath his ruthlessly controlled surface.
    “Never mind about the nursery,” Elyssa said quietly. “If your presence bothers me, I’ll sleep downstairs with Penny.”
    The fact that Elyssa somehow had sensed his grief nettled Hunter. He didn’t like being transparent to a girl like her.
    “I’ll survive,” Hunter said curtly. “I don’t need special treatment from the local flirt.”
    Penny’s breath went out with an audible rush. The antagonism between Elyssa and Hunter was strong enough to touch.
    And so was the desire.
    The sound of men’s voices carrying across the yard came as a relief to Elyssa. She began putting thick coffee mugs and crockery plates on the long table that ran down one side of the kitchen. In other times, Mac and Bill and John, Gloria and Penny and Elyssa, had sat there, talking about the land or the cattle or the turning of the seasons.
    “Better hurry getting settled in,” Elyssa said without looking at Hunter. “The last man to the breakfast table has to clean the stables.”
    The back door of the kitchen opened as she spoke. Mickey, Lefty, and Gimp crowded in, elbowing to be the first to sit at the long table.
    Elyssa gave Hunter a sideways look. Then she smiled.
    “Oh, dear,” she said. “I guess you’re last. After breakfast, I’ll be glad to show you where the manure fork is.”
    Hunter didn’t doubt it.

5
    H unter handled a manure rake the same way he did everything else—cleanly, quickly, and with no extra motions. He also did the job without resentment, a fact that the two oldest ranch hands noted and approved.
    Cupid, the marmalade barn cat, watched from a nearby manger. Five black and orange kittens nursed hungrily, undisturbed by the commotion. Cupid’s wide yellow eyes probed the shadows for tiny movements. Though quite full at the moment, the cat was a predator to the marrow of her delicate bones.
    As Gimp walked unevenly down the center aisle, seemingly intent on getting a bit of grain for the horses in the corral, Hunter glanced up from his work. Gimp nodded to him and hitched along a little