Only 05 - Autumn Lover

knows the ranch—and its mistress—a hell of a lot more intimately than I do .
    Penny looked at Elyssa for a long, tense moment. Then Penny bit her lip hard enough to leave marks andwent to check on the glass jars that were boiling merrily, supported by the wire canning rack. The sands in the little hourglass had just run through.
    “Let me get that,” Elyssa said quickly. “You’re distracted and haven’t felt well and the rack is heavy. I don’t want you to burn yourself.”
    Before Penny could object, Elyssa brushed past her. The pot holders in her hands were big, thick, and stained with long use. The contrast with Elyssa’s orchid silk afternoon dress couldn’t have been greater.
    Hunter reached around Elyssa from behind and snatched the pot holders from her hands. The rosemary scent of her hit him like a blow.
    The scarf holding back Elyssa’s hair was a confection of gauzy silk whose purple depths heightened the silvery gold paleness of her hair. The smooth, fine-grained skin of her nape made a sensual contrast to the scarf, which had been tied peasant style at the back of her head.
    I wish I could break her of wearing silk and satin around the ranch , Hunter thought savagely. It’s pure hell on a man .
    “I’ll take care of the jars,” Hunter said.
    Caged between the heat of the stove and the power of Hunter’s body, Elyssa froze.
    “You don’t have to,” she said. “I can—”
    “Don’t be foolish,” Hunter interrupted, his voice curt. “Where do you want the jars?”
    “On the table. Thank you.”
    Hunter lifted a rack from each huge pot and put it on the long, scarred wooden table. Glass steamed and dried instantly.
    Quickly Penny and Elyssa filled the jars with green beans, added salt and water, and screwed down the lids. Normally Elyssa would have added onion or garlic or herbs to the beans, but there was nothing normal about this canning session.
    Today they were canning everything they could, no matter if it wasn’t at the peak of ripeness.
    Once the dissolved salt in the garden reached the plant roots, there would be no ripening. The garden would die. Then vegetables would rot, unless they were picked quickly and canned immediately.
    While Elyssa and Penny went to work on the canning jars, Hunter surprised both women by calmly beginning to scrub the smallest potatoes, preparing them for canning. The larger potatoes would go in the root cellar, along with the bigger onions, carrots, turnips, and the like.
    Elyssa screwed down the last lid and lifted one of the racks of jars. Before she had it more than an inch off the table, Hunter’s arms shot around her and took the weight. She made a startled sound that went no farther than Hunter’s ears.
    “I’ll take that,” he said. “You chop up some more beans.”
    Elyssa wanted to be as matter-of-fact as Hunter was, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate. The feel of Hunter’s arms around her was literally breathtaking, despite the fact that he was simply being helpful.
    Then Elyssa looked over her shoulder and saw Hunter’s quicksilver eyes. The desire in them was as naked as the power of his arms caging her.
    “I—I can’t,” Elyssa whispered.
    “Can’t what?”
    “Cut up green beans.”
    “Why not?”
    “We just did the last batch.”
    “What about peas?” Hunter asked.
    Elyssa licked her lips nervously.
    The sudden narrowing of Hunter’s eyes as he watched her tongue was as clear as the too rapid beating of the pulse in Elyssa’s neck.
    “Then maybe you better duck under my arm and shell peas,” Hunter suggested softly.
    “Peas?”
    “Little round green things. They come tucked close together in little green pods. Remember them?”
    At the moment Elyssa was lucky to remember her own name. All she could think of was how Hunter’s mouth had felt against hers, how he had tasted, how sweet his breath had been.
    “If you tease me by licking your lips again,” Hunter said low and hard, “I swear I’ll back you up against the table and give you exactly what you’re begging for.”
    A flush climbed Elyssa’s cheeks. She ducked beneath Hunter’s arm and went to the sink.
    Blindly she began cleaning out a pumpkin. Great handfuls of the sticky center plopped heavily into a colander that stood in the sink. The pulp hit the colander so hard it rattled on its three metal legs.
    “Do you want to save those pumpkin seeds for planting?” Penny asked Elyssa.
    “What?”
    “The pumpkins seeds.”
    “Oh.