Killer Cowboy Charm. Vicki Thompson Lewis

kitchen door.

      José, a guy who clearly liked his own cooking way too much, was already slicing and dicing for what looked like his famous enchiladas. Hired when Clint’s mother couldn’t handle the job anymore, José had been in charge of the Circle W kitchen for enough years that he felt the kitchen was his to command.

      He glanced up from the cutting board. “Where’s the TV lady?”

      “In her room working on her script for tomorrow.”

      José’s dark eyes shone with excitement. “Do I get to meet her?”

      “Sure, you can meet her. I thought you’d be having dinner with us, like you always do.”

      “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to do that. I know myself. I’d dump my food in my lap while I was busy staring at her.”

      “Aw, no, you wouldn’t. She’s not that scary.”

      “Boss, she was in People magazine. I’ve never come face-to-face with anyone who was in People. I wouldn’t know how to act. I’d embarrass myself, for sure. I’d—”

      “You’d better stop chopping that tomato. It’s mushed into a pulp already.”

      José glanced at the chopping board. “See? Just thinking about her I murdered this poor tomato. No, just introduce me before you start eating, and I’ll go back in the kitchen and quiver for ten minutes.”

      Clint laughed. “Okay. Your decision. But I really don’t think—”

      The kitchen door opened and Tuck poked in his head. “Jed and Denny have voted to eat down at the bunkhouse tonight instead of up here. So give us a call when the food’s ready and I’ll come get it.”

      José nodded. “I’ll bet I know why. They’re all nervous about the TV lady and don’t think their manners are good enough.”

      “I guess so.” Tuck shook his head. “Me, I couldn’t care less one way or the other, but they made me promise to stay down there with them and act like we do this all the time. They’re scared, but they don’t want her to know it.”

      Clint was having trouble comprehending it. Jed, an accomplished steer wrestler, was a bull of a guy who’d never seemed afraid of anything. Redheaded Denny always had girls hanging around and he’d been the first to sign up for the contest. “Are you saying that José, Jed and Denny are all too nervous to be in the same room with her?”

      “Seems like,” Tuck said. “Now, the cameraman, he’s a different story. They’re real tight with him already. He’s eating with them tonight, too, by the way.”

      “So it’s only Meg and me having our meal here in the house?” Clint pictured the two of them at a table big enough for eight. He’d imagined all the hands there, as they usually were, along with Tuck, and the cameraman. Just two of them at that big table would look silly.

      José gave him a pleading glance. “You can handle it, boss. You’ve been to college and everything. The rest of us are country boys.”

      “But Jed and Denny are entering the contest! Don’t they want to get to know her better? They’d have a head start over the guys who won’t show up until tomorrow morning.”

      “I tried to tell them that, too,” Tuck said. “They’re sure they’ll just ruin their chances. They’d rather wait until tomorrow, when they’ll be showing off their cowboying skills. They’re afraid to have a meal with her, where table manners and such would come into play.”

      Clint groaned. “This is getting more ridiculous by the minute.”

      “I know,” Tuck said. “But that’s the situation.”

      Clint had a mental picture of him sitting at one end of the long dining table and Meg at the other. Even sitting across from each other width-wise would leave an awful lot of empty space. She’d want to know if he usually ate by himself at that table and he couldn’t explain without saying that his hands were too chicken to join her for dinner.

      “Tell you what, José,” he said. “Meg and I will set up in front of the fireplace instead of the dining room.”

      “Okay, boss. You want me to bring out the card table? It’s a little rickety, though.”

      “No.” Clint was making this up as he went along. A rickety card table was not what he wanted, either. Somewhere in the past couple of hours he’d started worrying about Meg Delancy’s opinion. That wasn’t a good thing, but it was true.

      “We’ll use the coffee table,” Clint said. “That round slab of oak will hold anything.” He’d stood on it a few times when he needed to reach something taller than he was.

      “And you’ll make a royal mess,” José said. “It’s enchiladas tonight, don’t forget, and that’s a long way from the plate to your mouth. Not that you’re sloppy, boss, but I can see enchilada sauce all down your shirt if you’re sitting on the couch and eating off the coffee table.”

      “Then sit on the floor,” Tuck said. “Take a couple of cushions off the couch and sit on the floor. Like they do at those ethnic restaurants.”

      José grinned. “Good idea! Yeah, that’ll be real cozy.”

      “I’ll help you set it up.” Tuck headed for the living room.

      Clint had obviously lost control of the situation and didn’t know how to get it back. But cozy was way more intimate than he’d had in mind. Eating at the big table would have looked ridiculous, which was why he’d thought of eating in front of the fire. He hadn’t worked out the details, though, and all of a sudden he was stuck with cozy.

      Although he could countermand Tuck’s idea, he wouldn’t. The guy had become a substitute father, and Clint had never felt like Tuck’s boss. He respected his foreman more than anyone he knew.

      So, instead of objecting, he followed Tuck into the living room to supervise and make sure it wouldn’t be too damned cozy. He was already worried enough about how this shared lodging would work out and what the possible repercussions would be.

      By the time Clint arrived in the living room and dumped his load of firewood on the hearth, Tuck had already moved the couch back from the coffee table. The little guy had amazing strength for his size.

      “Okay, we’ll take this cushion, here, and put it right here.” Tuck pulled a square seat cushion from the couch and plopped it on the braided rug right behind the coffee table.

      “Now it looks like we’re camping,” Clint said. “Maybe I should just invite her to the Steak Out and be done with it.”

      “You can’t do that.” Tuck pulled another cushion from the couch and positioned it on the floor right next to the first cushion.

      “Why not?” Clint leaned down and moved the second cushion so it was a good three feet from the first one.

      “Because you would break José’s heart, that’s why. He’s been planning his specialty enchilada dinner ever since he found out the TV lady was coming. You know he’s mighty proud of his enchiladas.” Tuck moved the first cushion again so it was touching the second.

      “I hadn’t realized he planned the menu just for her.” Clint moved his cushion around the table so it was another three feet away.

      “Well, he did.” Tuck surveyed the arrangement and moved the first cushion up next to the second one again.

      Clint moved his cushion again too. “Then it looks like we’ll eat here in front of the fire.”

      “Looks like, although I can’t figure out what you’re doing with these two cushions.” Tuck moved his so it followed the other around the table. “We started out with them facing the fire, and now you’ll be sitting with your backs to it. I don’t get the point of that.”

      Clint reached for both cushions, hauled them up and brought them back