What The Rancher Wants.... Lucy Monroe

what?”

      “On why you were discourteous to begin with.”

      “What exactly did you consider the discourtesy, if you don’t mind me asking? My one-word replies or my warning?”

      She felt herself blush because she’d been rude too. Insulting even and it hadn’t gone over his head. He’d simply opted not to make an issue of it.

      She sighed. “The warning. Most women would not find your assumption that they are looking at you as a potential mate on such short acquaintance flattering.”

      Even as she said the words, she felt silly. She was taking them far too personally. Really.

      His cynical laugh didn’t make her feel any better. “Honey, I’m a rich man with a lifestyle a lot of people covet. A fair number of women would consider marriage a nice way to ensure they share it. I learned a long time ago to make my lack of interest in marriage clear from the beginning, no matter what relationship between me and the woman.” He certainly wasn’t talking in single syllables right now.

      “You mean you warn all your dates and hands the same way?”

      “Yes. I don’t have any women working the Bar G right now, but the female vet got her warning the first time she came out to check the horses.”

      “It’s like a religion with you,” she said, a little awed by his vehemence.

      He sat up, planting his booted feet securely under him. “You could see it that way. You sure talk fancy for a housekeeper.”

      But not for a high school English teacher with a degree in French literature, she thought. “Is that a strike against me?”

      “I don’t know. Why don’t you sit down and we’ll discuss it?”

      She acquiesced.

      He smiled again and she decided that she preferred it when he frowned. His smile was entirely too sexy and the last thing she needed was to think of her employer, particularly this one, as sexy in any way. He wasn’t interested in marriage and she wasn’t interested in an affair.

      That left sexy out of their equation.

      “What kind of experience do you have?” he asked.

      “Not a lot,” she admitted. “Not any paid, but I can cook and I’ve been keeping house for myself since I went away to college.”

      Of course, keeping up with her dorm room and then small apartments was nothing on the scale of his three-story mansion, but she would cope.

      “If you can cook as well as you talk, the hands are going to love you.” He gave her another once-over, this time, instead of chills, his gaze making her go hot in places an employer should not affect. “Then again, once they get a look at you, they’ll think they’ve gone to heaven even if your food tastes like cow pies.”

      This she was used to. This she could handle. At least that was what she tried to convince herself. Men had been making comments about her figure for years. She had learned long ago that the best way to deal with the comments was to ignore them. “Ever eaten any?”

      “Any what?”

      “Cow pies?”

      “No,” he said, with a hint of smile in his voice.

      “Then I guess you won’t know if my cooking falls under that category, now, will you?”

      The smile became a full-blown chuckle. “Guess not. You start tomorrow morning, Tex.”

      “My name is Carlene.”

      “But you talk like a Texan.”

      “I’ll have to work harder on that. I’ll never live there again.” Too much pain she never wanted to revisit.

      Relaxing against the brown leather couch in his living room, Win swirled the whiskey in his glass before taking a swallow. It had been several hours since Carlene Daniels had left. His new housekeeper. He grinned.

      She had a body that would make most men uncomfortable in their jeans and talked like a prissy little schoolmarm. Remembering the curves her loose top had been unable to hide, he amended his thoughts. The lady wasn’t exactly little, at least not in some places. She wasn’t too big either. She was a perfect pocket Venus, with womanly curves that led to a naturally small waist. She was the stuff of most adolescent male dreams, maybe most adult ones as well.

      She’d certainly been the subject of too many of his waking thoughts today. He still couldn’t figure out what gremlin had gotten into him and prompted him to offer her the job. She had no experience. He sure as hell hoped she could cook. His hands might like looking at a sexy woman like her, but that would grow old pretty darn quick if she didn’t feed them right. He sighed.

      Maybe he should assign Shorty to help her until she got used to the routine. The diminutive man made lousy biscuits, but he knew the quantities and types of food horsemen ate.

      She’d probably talk Shorty’s ears off. The woman had a mouth on her and it was plain as the day was long that she was used to being in charge. So long as she limited that bossy streak to the house, they wouldn’t have any problems. He didn’t want to have to worry about anything but running the Bar G and Garrison Stables. With mares ready to foal he didn’t have time to concern himself with stuff like meals and cleaning house.

      He wondered where she’d gotten such a bossy streak. If she didn’t have any experience as a housekeeper and cook, what types of jobs had she held before? He couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked her. He hadn’t even asked her to fill out an employment application. He had hired her based on sheer instinct and that wasn’t like him. He was a careful man.

      He hated admitting it, but his hormones had played their part too. It was disconcerting to realize that he’d reached the age of thirty and he could still be swayed so strongly by the sight of a beautiful woman. He’d just gone too long without. He hadn’t had a date in months and hadn’t slept with a woman in even longer. He’d gotten tired of the games. Tired of empty sex. Both things seemed to come along with the territory for a man uninterested in marriage.

      There were times the big house felt empty too, times he felt empty. His certainty that marriage was for idiots didn’t waver. He’d learned the lesson too well at his mother’s knee. Hadn’t she married five men and divorced four? The only reason she hadn’t divorced her last husband was because she’d died before she could get bored again with marital bliss.

      There had been a time when Win had been willing to believe that there were women out there that weren’t like his mother. He’d been young and foolish. Barely out of high school and overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for his thirteen-year-old sister, he’d met a shy, sweet little gal who wanted to get married—Rachel. He had believed that Rachel could help with his sister, could make their household, devastated by the death of his mom and stepdad, a home again.

      It hadn’t worked that way. Rachel had wanted him to sell the Bar G and move to the big city. She had dreams and no one was going to stand in her way, least of all her young husband and his needy little sister. He hadn’t wanted to risk marriage since then. He’d learned his lesson the hard way, but he had learned it.

      Carlene sure had been offended when he laid it out flat for her. She’d bristled with feminine pride and it had been all he could do not to laugh. She was naïve if she thought most of the women who entered his life didn’t see him as a potential meal ticket complete with caviar and silver spoons.

      She didn’t know it, but it hadn’t been rude for him to set things straight from the beginning. It had been fair and he was a fair man. She had a right to know where he was coming from. He wanted her and he meant to have her, but he wasn’t interested in marriage.

      He’d wanted her from the moment he opened his door, irritated by the second ringing of chimes set off by the impatient person waiting on the other side. The woman standing on the other side had been so far from what he’d expected