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that he didn't want her to leave. It was a puzzle she couldn't seem to solve.
The sandwich tasted flat, although it was roast beef, one of her favorites. She put it down and stared at
it without seeing.
"Thinking of giving it its freedom, huh?" Leo asked with a grin, and sat down across from her. He
took off his hat, laid it on the chair beside him and gestured toward the sandwich. "I hate to tell you
this, but there's absolutely no way known to science that a roast beef sandwich can be rejuvenated." He
leaned forward conspiratorially. "Take it from a beef expert."
She chuckled despite her sadness. "Oh, Leo, you're just impossible," she choked.
"It runs in the family." He held up a hand and when the waitress came to see what he wanted, he
ordered coffee. "No lunch?" Tess asked.
He shook his head. "No time. I'm due at the Brewsters's in forty-five minutes for a business meeting
over lunch. Rubber chicken and overdone potatoes, like last time," he muttered. He glanced at her. "I
wish you were cooking for it instead of Brewster's daughter. She's pretty as a picture and I hear tell
she had operatic aspirations, but she couldn't make canned soup taste good."
He sounded so disgusted that Tess smiled in spite of herself. “Are you going by yourself, or are the
brothers going, too?"
"Just Cag and me. Rey escaped on a morning flight to Tulsa to close a land deal up there."
She lowered her eyes to the half-finished sandwich. "Does Cag like her...Miss Brewster?"
He hesitated. "Cag doesn't like women, period. I thought you knew."
"You said she was pretty."
"Like half a dozen other women who have fathers in the cattle business," he agreed. "Some of them
can even cook. But as you know Cag gave up on women when he was thrown over for a younger
man. Hell, the guy was only three years younger than him, at that. She used his age as an excuse. It
wasn't, really. She just didn't want him. The other guy had money, too, and she did want him."
"I see."
He sipped coffee and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I've told you before how Cag reacts to women
most of the time," he reminded her. "He runs." He smiled. "Of course, he's been doing his best to run
from you since last Christmas."
She looked at him with her heart in her eyes. "He has?" she asked.
"Sure! He wants you to go off to school so you'll remove temptation from his path. But he also wants
you to stay at the ranch while you go to school, in case you run into any handsome eligible bachelors
there. I think he plans to save you from them, if you do."
She was confused and it showed.
"He said," he related, "that you shouldn't be exposed to potential seducers without us to protect you."
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He held up a hand when she started to speak. "He thinks you should commute."
"But he doesn't want me at the ranch, don't you see?" she asked miserably, running a hand through her
short, curly hair. "He keeps leaving to get away from me!"
"Why would he leave if you weren't getting to him?" he asked reasonably.
"It's still a rotten way to live," she said pointedly. "Maybe if I go to school I'll meet somebody who'll
think I'm old enough for them."
"Oh, that's just sour grapes," he murmured dryly.
"You have no idea how sour," she replied. "I give up. I can't spend the rest of my life hoping that he'll
change his mind about me. He's had almost a year, and he hasn't changed a thing."
"He stopped throwing cakes," he said.
"Because I stopped baking them!"
He checked his watch and grimaced. "I'd love to stay here and talk recipes with you, but I'm late." He
got up and smiled at her. "Don't brood, okay? I have a feeling that things are going to work out just
fine."
That wasn't what she thought, but he was gone before she could put the thought into words.
Chapter 8
It was inevitable that Leo would bring up the matter of the Brewster girl's cooking the next day.
Breakfast was too much of a rush, and they didn't get to come home for lunch. But when two of the
three brothers and Tess sat down to supper, Leo let it fly with both barrels.
"That Janie Brewster isn't too bad-looking, is she?" Leo murmured between bites of perfectly cooked
barbecued chicken. "Of course, she can ruin a chicken."
Cag glanced at him quickly, as if the remark puzzled him. Then he glanced at Tess's studiously
downbent head and understood immediately what Leo was trying to do.
He took a forkful of chicken and ate it before he replied, "She'll never make a cook. Or even much of
a wife," he added deliberately. "She knows everything."
"She does have a university degree."
"In psychology," Cag reminded him. "I got psychoanalyzed over every bite of food." He glanced at
Tess. "It seems that I have repressed feelings of inadequacy because I keep a giant reptile," he related
with a twinkle in his black eyes.
Tess's own eyes widened. "You do?"
He nodded. "And I won't eat carrots because I have some deep-seated need to defy my mother."
She put a napkin to her mouth, trying to ward off laughter.
"You forgot the remark she made about the asparagus," Leo prompted.
Cag looked uncomfortable. "We can forget that one."
"But it's the best one!" Leo turned to Tess. "She said that he won't eat asparagus because of
associations with impo—"
"Shut up!" Cag roared.
Leo, who never meant to repeat the blatant sexual remark, only grinned. "Okay."
Tess guessed, quite correctly, that the word Cag had cut off was "impotence." And she was in a perfect
position to tell Leo that it certainly didn't apply to his older brother, but she wouldn't have dared.
As it was, her eyes met Cag's across the table, and she flushed at the absolutely wicked glitter in those
black eyes, and almost upset her coffee.
Leo, watching the byplay, was affectionately amused at the two of them trying so hard not to react.
There was a sort of intimate mer-riment between them, despite Cag's attempts to ward off intimacy.
Apparently he hadn't been wholly successful.
"I've got a week's worth of paperwork to get through," Cag said after a minute, getting up.
"But I made dessert," Tess said.
He turned, surprised. "I don't eat sweets. You know that." She smiled secretively. "You'll like this one.
It isn't really a conventional dessert."
He pushed in his chair. "Okay," he said. "But you'll have to bring it to me in the office.
How about some coffee, too?"
"Sure."
Leo put down his napkin. "Well, you do the hard stuff. I'm going down to Shea's Bar to see if I can
find Billy Telford. He promised me faithfully that he was going to give me a price on that Salers bull
we're after. He's holding us up hoping that he can get more from the Tremaynes."
"The Tremaynes don't run Salers cattle," Cag said, frowning. "Yes, but that's because Billy's only just
been deluging them with facts on the advantages of diversification." He shrugged.
"I don't think they'll buy it, but Billy does. I'm going to see if I can't get him dru...I mean,"
he amended immediately, "get him to give me a price."
"Don't you dare," Cag warned. "I'm not bailing you out again. I mean it."
"You drink from time to time," Leo said indignantly.
"With good reason, and I'm quiet about it. You aren't. None of us have forgotten the last time you cut
loose in Jacobsville."
"I'd just gotten my degree," Leo said curtly. "It was a great reason to celebrate."
"To celebrate, yes. Not to wreck the bar. And several customers."
"As I recall, Corrigan and Rey helped."
"You bad boys," Tess murmured under her breath.
Cag glanced at her. "I never drink to excess anymore."
"Neither do I. And I didn't say that I was going to get drunk," Leo persisted. "I said I was going to get
Billy drunk. He's much more malleable when he's not sober."
Cag shook a finger at him. "Nothing he signs inebriated will be legal. You remember that."
Leo threw up both hands. "For heaven's sake!"
"We can do without that bull." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]