Rancher's Deadly Risk (12 page)

Outside in the hallway, Cassie started for her classroom, knowing that Gus was probably still standing there like a palace guard.

“So he’s going to crack down,” Linc remarked. “I don’t know how much that’ll help.”

“I guess it depends on how many get rebellious.”

“At this age, that’ll probably be quite a few. Cassie...”

She looked at him then and sensed where he was trying to go. “Forget about it, Linc. Things happen. I need to get to my room.”

Hard words to say, but the best way to handle it. She left him quickly, striding away as fast as she could walk. Trouble. There’d be nothing but trouble if she got in any deeper with that man. Regardless of whether his reluctance grew from something in him or something about her, or a combination of both, it didn’t matter. It boded badly, and it was time to stay away.

“All clear,” Gus said cheerfully when she appeared. He opened the door and waved her in.

“Thanks so much, Gus. I really appreciate your concern.”

“No problem. I see more than a lot of people would like. What you’re doing is right.”

Well, at least she had her own cheerleading section. The thought brought the first smile of the day to her face.

Nor was the day bad. While she had expected there might be some trouble with her students, they all seemed to behave perfectly normally. James Carney still looked isolated and a bit pinched in the far back corner, but that wasn’t a change. She just hoped that someday soon he would start to appear more comfortable.

For now all she could do was avoid drawing any attention to him that might bring on more teasing.

Unpleasant though it was for people to be talking about her and thinking she might have lied, it was far better for the attention to be on her. She could handle it. Well, except for butchered rats. The memory nearly made her shudder, but then she reminded herself nothing else had happened. The mood must be cooling down now, at least with whoever had killed the rat and phoned her. The confrontation in the parking lot was still fresh in her mind, but she could deal with that kind of thing.

It was shadowy threats from unknown persons that bothered her most of all, and those had stopped.

By the end of the day she was feeling considerably more cheerful about life...well, except when it came to Linc. The memory of his kiss plagued her, popping up without warning, and unwanted.

Damn, she thought, it was just a kiss. Maybe the nicest kiss of her life, the most arousing—how in the world could she explain that?—but it was still just a kiss. He hadn’t taken it one step further. Meaningless. Utterly meaningless.

Except she had felt his response to her, and the memory of
that
kept drizzling through her body like warm honey. He
had
wanted her, if only physically. Supposedly that didn’t mean much with men, but it meant a lot to
her
. It was good for her ego, if not her peace of mind.

At the end of the day, Linc appeared in the doorway of her classroom just as she was tucking the last items in her book bag.

“Let’s go get a bite,” he said.

She looked at him uncertainly. “Why?”

“Why not?” He shrugged one shoulder, reminding her abruptly of the strength in the arms that had held her last night. “We go out to Maude’s. Everyone can see you with me. That may lead some folks to question certain assumptions about you.”

Another rescue mission. God, she thought as she picked up her bag and tossed it over her shoulder, she wished he’d turn up sometime for another reason. Of course there was that crazy trip out to his ranch on Monday night. What purpose had that served?

Only to make her wish she could spend more time there. She’d really enjoyed it. On the other hand, how could either of them be sure she might like it when the novelty wore off? Maybe that was part of what made him keep a distance.

Deciding there was no point in arguing about it, and silently admitting she
did
want to spend more time with him, she accompanied him out to his truck. There must be neutral things they could talk about, like his ranch and his livestock. Anything but school and bullying. Or desire.

He remained silent through the short drive over to Maude’s café. One of the things she found charming in this town was that the City Diner, clearly signed and marked as such, was called Maude’s by everyone, after its owner. It had struck her as a signpost indicating how well the people around here knew each other. Learning that had been one of the things that had helped her make her decision to accept this job.

She hadn’t really thought about being an outsider, and after Maude had taken their orders in her grumpy fashion, she said so to Linc.

“The one thing I didn’t take into my calculations when I fell in love with this county...”

He arched his brows, his blue eyes intent. “You fell in love with this county?”

“Of course I did. I wouldn’t have moved here otherwise.”

“But how could you know so fast?”

She hesitated, then finally decided to admit the truth. “Somewhere inside I’ve always looked for a place like this. A small town surrounded by wide-open spaces where most folks are friendly. A place where I could actually get to know most of my neighbors. Silly dream, I suppose, but I dreamed it anyway. Until now I’ve never lived in a place like this, but I always, always wanted to.”

He nodded. “Sorry for the interruption. You were saying?”

“There was one thing I didn’t realize, that I’d be an outsider. Maybe for a long time to come. I never had to face that before. So...” She shrugged. “I’ve learned something. Kids whose families came here to work at the semiconductor plant are still outsiders, from what you said last week. How long have they been here, but they’re still the new kids?”

He frowned faintly and leaned back to let Maude serve them coffee. “It’s easier with the adults, I think.”

“Are you sure?”

At that a faint smile appeared on his face. “Well, when you see what Maude puts in front of you next, you may get the message.”

“I didn’t order anything.”

“Around here, that doesn’t matter.”

Barely had the words left his mouth than Maude slapped two pieces of pie in front of them and stomped off without a word. “Pie? Why? What do you mean?”

“Whatever Maude has heard, she’s letting you know she doesn’t agree with it. You’ve just been welcomed as a regular here. And that means that sometimes Maude decides what you eat.”

“Wow.” She looked at the pie and felt warmed. “I’m honored.”

“You should be. Some folks have been coming in here for years and never been given free pie.”

She looked at him and a little giggle escaped her. “So all is better now?”

“Here at least. Maude’s making her opinion known, and my experience is that if she hears any talk about you, some steaks are going to get overdone.”

Cassie laughed outright at that. “But why would she have a different opinion from everyone else?”

“I doubt it’s everyone else, to begin with. Yes, some folks are talking. It worries me, and I wanted you to be aware of it, but rarely does everyone around here buy something like that as gospel. Who was it who confronted you, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” And she hadn’t wanted to talk about this. “I never met her. Can we discuss something else, please?”

“Sure.” He sounded agreeable. “So what’s on your mind?”

A lot of things were on her mind, and not a single thing she could mention, really. Ask him about that kiss last night and why he’d pulled away? Not likely. She hunted around inside her head for an innocuous topic while covering her silence with a mouthful of pie.

“Wow,” she said. “This pie is fantastic!”

“Maude’s famous for them. One of the reasons it means something when she gives you a slice for free.”

Cassie looked around and saw Maude walking toward a table. “This pie is fabulous!” she called. “Thank you!”

She supposed that grimace was a kind of smile.

“Not the easiest person to get along with?” she asked Linc quietly.

“Depends. I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side, though.”

She savored another bite of pie, knowing she’d never enjoy it if they came back to the bullying. “Do you ever think about getting more animals at your ranch?”

He smiled. “Often. I like them. But I have to be realistic about what I can handle. As it is, breeding alone gets ahead of me sometimes.”

“Like rabbits, huh?”

“Not quite, but sometimes it feels like it.” He rolled his eyes humorously.

“I never thought about raising goats. I can understand all the uses for sheep, but goats?”

“I sell a lot of mine. There’s a market for the milk, but also for their hair. Mine are angoras, and their hair is something you’d recognize as mohair.”

“Really.” She smiled at that. “And their meat?”

“There’s a cultural market for that, too. So I really have no trouble making enough off them to pay for them with a little left over. But as a major operation?” He shook his head. “I’d need a lot more than two hands.”

“Well, I thought they were neat just to have around. If a few is enough for you, there’s nothing wrong with that. I actually liked them better than the sheep.”

“They’re a lot more amusing, to me anyway. Very smart and full of high jinks. It’s a good thing I have the dogs to keep them in line.”

The diner was beginning to fill up with people. Cassie looked around, trying to make friendly eye contact, but noticed that a few of the people avoided her gaze. She pushed her pie to one side.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Linc said quietly. “Stick it out a little longer.”

“How’s that going to help?”

“I’m here with you. More than any of them, I’m in a position to know whether the gossip is true. Hang in there, Cassie.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said firmly. “But my appetite died.”

“Just be sure to take the pie with you.”

“Must not offend, huh?”

“You got it.”

It was hard not to keep looking at him when he sat right across the table from her. Staring down at her cup didn’t feel like the right thing to do, either. The people looking her way could interpret that to mean that she was feeling defensive.

Too much education in psychology, she thought with weary amusement. So here she was, caught between the devil and pair of deep blue eyes, to mangle a metaphor. She could send challenging looks around the room, if anyone was staring, or she could give up and just drink in Linc with her eyes.

She knew what she wanted to do. Seizing on the first straw she could find, she asked him, “Do you have a Celtic heritage?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because that was the first thing that occurred to me when I saw you. Blue eyes, dark hair.” Not to mention an incredibly perfect build from what she could tell. She skipped the part about thinking he resembled a warrior, though. That was definitely over-the-top, a female fantasy not to be shared.

“I guess I do,” he said. “My mother always said she was black Irish.”

“That would explain it. I’m mostly mutt myself.”

He laughed. “You look like anything but a mongrel.”

She felt her cheeks flush, but only faintly, thank goodness. “I really don’t know much about my family. My dad left when I was three, never to be heard from again, and my mother steadily sank into alcohol.”

“Damn, that must have been tough.”

She acknowledged it with a nod. “There were good times, too. It wasn’t all bad. If I can say nothing else for my mom, it’s that I always knew she loved me. No matter what.”

“I take it she’s gone?”

“A couple of years ago. Cirrhosis.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. It’s a horrible addiction and I watched her struggle with it. It was sad to watch, because she tried so hard up until near the end, but it was like watching someone in tennis shoes try to scale the steep side of an icy mountain.”

“That’s some image,” he said quietly.

“That’s how it seemed. Like no matter how hard she struggled, she could never quite get her footing. That’s why I don’t drink much. I’m afraid of it.”

“I can see why. I guess I’ve been lucky, because I never really had to think about it. I can enjoy a beer or two on a weekend, or a glass of wine with dinner, but that’s enough for me. I got rousingly drunk once in college and the hangover cured me of any desire to repeat it.”

She had to smile. “I hear they’re awful.”

“I got drunk on wine with some friends. I couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff for years. And the morning after...” He shook his head. “Never again.”

“I don’t like things that make my head feel messed up. I prefer it to be clear.”

“Then I guess it would be safe to take you dancing at one of our roadhouses.” He winked.

Her heart slammed into high gear. Take her dancing? Surely he was joking. He
had
to be. “Why? Because I wouldn’t drink too much?”

“You wouldn’t trample my feet,” he joked. He appeared to hesitate and then volunteered something she sensed was still a sore spot with him. “My former...girlfriend wasn’t much of a drinker until we’d go out to do some line-dancing at a roadhouse just outside of town. Then she claimed the dancing made her thirsty. There was more than one occasion when I practically had to pour her into the truck.”

Cassie screwed up her face. “How awful. I’m sorry.”

“I made excuses for her. She was just cutting loose, and everyone needs to do that at times. But in retrospect, maybe I should have made fewer excuses.”

His face darkened, and she lowered her gaze, deciding to leave him alone. Definitely a sore spot, so why persist? If he wanted to say more, he could.

He surprised her with his next words. “I like to dance. Do you?”

“I’m not very good.” Mainly because she hadn’t had much opportunity to learn or practice.

“I can help you. Why don’t we go tonight, if you can stand the country music? And I promise to get you out of there before things get too rowdy.”

She almost gaped at him. Last night he’d kissed her then backed away as if he felt it was a mistake, and now he wanted to take her dancing? Was he asking her for a date?

No, that wasn’t possible. Maybe he just wanted to work off some steam dancing. He said he liked it, and while she imagined he could find women to dance with at the roadhouse, maybe he preferred not to do that. So perhaps he just saw her as a safe dance partner since she was a colleague. “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly.