Alexander Ranch (6 page)

Once, I was in bed she’d settled in the other room bending over her laptop. The moment I was safely inside, Jordan had promptly left with barely a goodbye. I could tell it bothered him to be near me and I couldn’t figure out why. He seemed to be going to great pains to not show just how much he didn’t like me, my presence, or both. Clearly he resented being assigned to protect me. I couldn’t figure out why and honestly didn’t have the energy to worry about it too much at the moment. Whatever his issue was, it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t assigned him. So I redirected my mind to positive thoughts that soothed the sting of his obvious loathing of me and soon fell asleep.

I woke up Monday morning feeling much better than I
had expected I would. Still, Grace had recommended that I take Monday off from work and I decided to take her advice. I called in to let John know I was ill and wouldn’t be in. Then, I hung up the phone and promptly fell back to sleep.

Chapter
6

When I woke again, I smelled coffee brewing. I slipped out of bed and head
ed for the kitchen. My surprise grew at how normal I felt. I had a few aches and pains, but I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I thought I would. I was tired and sore, but not too bad overall. I heard the soft tapping of someone typing on a keyboard as I walked down the short hallway towards the living room. I started to call out a greeting to Daisy, only to find Jordan sitting on the sofa and hunched over the coffee table typing.

“Oh,” I said in surprise
, “where’s Daisy?”

“She needed to go home, shower
, and change. She’ll be back later.” He replied neutrally without even bother to glance in my direction.

“Oh, well, good morning
,” I said stiffly.

“Good morning.”

Still, he never even glanced up. I continued on to the kitchen now, feeling self-conscious about my disheveled appearance. I probably had bed head and who knows what else. So much for my self-talk last night about not letting his ranker for me get to me. I poured my coffee and hurried back to my room to make myself more presentable. I didn’t want to examine too closely why I hadn’t needed to make myself more presentable when I thought it was Daisy in my living room. Besides, he hadn’t even looked at me. Whatever this was, I was loathe to call it attraction, it was definitely one sided. He seemed to find me more distasteful with each passing hour. At the very least he was indifferent to me. I sighed and focused on getting dressed. I would put Jordan out of my mind and simply ignore whatever these unwelcome twinges were.

When I came out of the bathroom from brushing my teeth I heard what sounded like a muffled conversation. Someone else was here. I opened my bedroom door a crack to try and hear what was going on.

“Logan is just trying to punish me,” Jordan hissed, “Why else would he assign me to babysit this girl?”

“Oh, Jordan. Come on, you know that’s not true. I’m here too. Am I being punished?”

“That’s different and you know it.”

“How is it different?”

“First and foremost, you
want
to be here. I don’t!”

“She’s really gotten under your skin, hasn’t she? You find her that distasteful, huh?” Daisy asked with a teasing note in her voice. Why was she teasing him? Did she think it was funny that he found me distasteful? And, just what was it about me that he found so distasteful?

“It’s not funny, Daze,” he shot back.

I closed the door. I didn’t want to hear anymore. I felt the coffee roil in my stomach. So, I
had
picked up on some underlying dislike he had for me. It didn’t feel very good knowing the person who was charged with guarding me didn’t like me very much. I sternly vowed that I would not explore his dislike for me any further. If he didn’t like me, fine. I didn’t like him much either. But, if I were being honest, I knew I worried there was another reason why I didn’t just try and peak into his thoughts to see what exactly about me he found so distasteful. It was one thing to suspect someone you were attracted to loathed you in return, it was another to confirm it.

I generally made a point of not looking into peoples thoughts. I find that most of the time I really did not want to know them.
The vicious and nasty thoughts in the heads of most people were not someplace I wanted to spend much time. It had taken me so long to block off my mind from the thoughts of others that I only broke my peace of mind when absolutely necessary. This time I hadn’t peaked with my mental senses, but I’d still heard everything I needed to hear in his own words to know just how much he didn’t like me. Besides, when I’d touched Daisy’s mind the first time, I could swear she felt my intrusion. She’d gasped. I certainly didn’t want to get caught trying to sneak into Jordan’s mind.

Chapter 7

I made a point of clearing my throat as I opened the bedroom door. As I intended, all conversation stopped. I walked down the hallway and greeted Daisy. I was careful not to even look at Jordan, though I could see him looking at me in my peripheral vision. I could swear he was glaring daggers at me.

“Um, Daisy. I need to get my phone replaced. I’m feeling fine, really. You guys don’t need to be here. I’m sure I’m quite safe,” I tried to say this in a light calm voice. But, I noticed that she gave Jordan a glare before turning to me. She knew or suspected I’d overheard there conversation.

“We can go with you. It’s no problem.”

“No!
” I practically shouted. I took a moment to gentle my voice and then continued, “Really, I will be fine.”

“You aren’t getting rid of me so easily.” She placed her hands on her hips. “I was hoping you wanted to go have some ice cream. I am surrounded by men at home except for my sister. I finally get to have some girl time and you’re trying to dump me?”

“You want to go have ice cream with me?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, I would. Grump Butt
over here has other duties to attend to, so we won’t have to be bothered with him,” she said jerking her head towards Jordan. He scowled at her. “However, my cousin, Ethan, would like to meet you. He’s the one whose life you saved by distracting the men who shot him. Is that ok?”

“Uh, sure. I’d like to meet him too. Is he ok?”

“Good. He’ll be here any minute,” She beamed. “And, yes, he’s fine. But, if you want to make this a totally girls only phone shopping and ice cream day we can kick him out after you meet him and go have fun.”

If he was anything like Jordan, I’d de
finitely want this to be an all-girls day. Before I could reply there was a knock on the door.

“He’s not a grump butt like Jordan here,”
Daisy said while walking to open the door. 

A tall, gorgeous man walked in the door. He had his arm in a sling and had some faint scars on his handsome face. He and Daisy hugged in greeting.

“Hey, Jordan,” he said coming deeper into the room and seeing Jordan.

“Ethan. Glad to see you, man,” Jordan replied unstiffening a bit. He rose and gave the man a manly hug. Then the newcomer looked at me.

“And you must be, Lela,” he marveled, coming over to me and taking my hand. “You are more beautiful than I remember. Of course, I was trying to figure out how not to get shot when I first saw you though. Thank you for saving my life.”

He raised my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. I blinked up at him. There was sincerity and amusement in those beautiful light brown eyes and I was held spellbound.

“We are going to get ice cream and replace her phone. Her phone didn’t fare so well when she jumped in the water,” Daisy interjected bringing me out of my stare. “You’re welcome to come, Ethan, if Lela doesn’t mind. Jordan doesn’t want to go.”

Ethan winked at me.

“I don’t mind,” I said, looking at Daisy and away from Ethan’s flirting eyes. Ethan gave Jordan a quizzical look and then smirked. Jordan glared back.

“Then, let’s go,” Ethan smiled. And we were off.

Jordan had left as fast as humanly possible with a curt “enjoy your ice cream” to no one in particular.

Chapter 8

Ethan was the polar opposite of Jordan. Where Jordan was moody, brooding and sour faced, Ethan was sunshine and smiles. He had an easy going personality and he flirted outrageously. He and Daisy together where like two fun loving balls of lightning.

We’d gone to ice cream first. I had assumed this was because Ethan was short on time and would be leaving us afterwards. But, I was surprised when he joined us to have my phone replaced. He was a consummate gentleman
. He opened doors, pulled out chairs and put an arm out to Daisy and I as we walked along the sidewalk. Overall, I found him quite charming.

Though I had done quite well on our short outing, I was rather tired when we got home. I was amazed at how good I felt though. With the way I’d felt just yesterday, I just knew I’d be hobbling around like an achy old lady for a while. I wasn’t sure what Daisy was doing to me, maybe slipping something in my coffee or drinks throughout the day, but I felt pretty good. My aches and pains could barely be called that. Mostly I was just tired. So, once I arrived back home I was ready for a short nap.

When I woke, Grace was there to check on me. She seemed so genuinely happy to see me I couldn’t help but be drawn to her. They were all so…well, nice. Well, all except Jordan. Grace checked my bandages, replaced them and declared me fit for work if I wished to return tomorrow. Otherwise she would write me a doctor’s note if I wanted to take more time off. I didn’t. I was ready to go back to work.

I called Blake once Grace left and he picked up on the first ring.

“Hey, Baby Girl, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, smiling at his nickname for me.

“Are you sure? I was worried about you.”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“Yes, but, I left you messages at the house too and you never got back to me. We do have a house phone you know.”

“I’m sorry,” I grimaced. I hadn’t even thought to check the house messages. I saw the flashing red light on the phone but never thought to call into the messaging service. “I was so tired when I got in last night I went to sleep. And, I left first thing this morning to replace my phone.”

“As long as you’re safe. What happened to your phone anyway? You said it got wet? Did you fall in the river or something?”

If he only knew how close he was. “Actually, I did.”

“How did you do that? It’s not like you to be clumsy,” he said, concern and suspicion in his voice. Boy could he be protective.

“Well, no not normally. But, I’m not immune to clumsiness now and again, Blake,” I drawled, going for an exasperated tone.

“You didn’t hurt yourself did you?”

“Just a few bumps and bruises,” I said truthfully, or as truthfully as I could be. He paused for a moment not saying anything. “I’m fine, Blake. Really. Don’t get on your big brother high horse.”

I heard a soft snort over the phone.

“Yea, you must be fine. Otherwise you wouldn’t be giving me attitude.”

Now it was my turn to snort.

“So, when will I see you again?”

“Not this weekend, but the next. Can’t wait to see you.”

“Me too,” I smiled. I missed my big brother.

“Hey, I’m getting ready to head out and get some food. I’ll call you later ok?”

“Call me tomorrow. I’m tired and have to nurse my bumps and bruises,” I whined exaggeratedly.

“Oh, yea, you’re fine,” he laughed. “Love you. Talk to you tomorrow then.”

“Love you too,” I giggled.

Chapter
9

The next day when I walked into my office at the back of the animal treatment clinic I had a sticky note pasted to my computer screen. It read,
Call John as soon as you get in
. I had several messages in my voicemail as well. I intended to call John, but I wanted to check my messages first. No doubt, he’d probably left me voice messages as well. I wanted to have some idea of what he wanted to talk to me about so urgently.

             
I was right. He had left me a message, but unfortunately, he gave me no other clues as to what he wanted. Just another message to call him as soon as I got this message because he had a special assignment for me he needed to discuss. But, he saved me the trouble of calling him. As soon as I set the receiver down he walked into my office.

“Good morning, Lela. How are you?” he asked in his usual cheerful voice.

“I am doing well, John. How about you?”

“You don’t look like you’re doing well,” he frowned, looking me over and seeing some of my bruises and scrapes. “I thought you were just a little sick yesterday, or wanting some additional deserved time off. What happened to you?”

“I just had a little accident when I went hiking on Sunday.”

“What kind of accident?” he asked sitting on the edge of my desk now. “Were you badly hurt?”

“I, sort of, fell in the river,” I tried to lie. “Just a few bumps and scrapes is all.”

“Did you go to the doctor?”