Always a Lady (2 page)

She'd piddled at eating an evening meal, snacking from whatever was left in her refrigerator as she browsed through the crumpled paper. It was when she got to the classified section that her interest was piqued.

"Help wanted," Lily mumbled. "Let's see if the job market in Oklahoma is so very different from California."

Nothing caught her attention until she came to a section marked, General Help. Four lines in a very generic ad caught her eye and for an instant, her imagination. Cook wanted - Longren Ranch - Clinton, Oklahoma - 405-555-BULL.

Lily laughed. She hadn't expected to, and she realized she hadn't in a very long time. Just the sound surprised her. Tears came to her eyes as she tried to remember the last time she'd even wanted to laugh.

"555-Bull," she grinned. "Who do they think they're kidding?"

She looked at the date on the top of the page and noticed with surprise that the paper was less than three days old. She wondered if the job had been filled, then wondered if she'd lost her mind. Why should she care whether the job of ranch cook was still open? She'd gone through four years of college, worked long and hard at Prentiss and Sons as a beginning secretary, and then private, legal secretary. She didn't need to worry about a cook's job.

That's what she kept telling herself all the way to the telephone. A long decorative mirror hanging over her sofa threw back a reflection that made her frown. The scar on her face was vivid. Her exertion earlier in the day while chasing the blowing paper had aggravated the new, healing tissue. Who would want to look at a face like that?

Her stomach churned as she sat down, grabbed the phone, and dialed the number. On the sixth ring, a man's deep, sleepy voice answered and Lily instantly remembered, although too late, that there was a two hour time difference. Lord! she thought. He'll think I'm crazy.

"This better be good," the man's deep drawl warned, "because it's too damn late for phone calls."

Silence answered him.

"Whoever's on the other end better start talking. It's your nickel and I'm too tired to play games."

Lily took a deep breath and blurted out. "Is this Mr. Longren in Oklahoma?"

"Yeah," came the sleepy response. "What can I do for you?"

"Is the cook's job still open?" Lily asked.

Silence answered her, and then a husky chuckle sent shivers up her spine as his voice softened and the anger seemed to disappear.

"You called me at a quarter to eleven at night to ask about a job?" The laughter was still evident in his voice, but the question was sincere.

"Yes . . ." Lily stuttered, suddenly put on the defensive about committing herself. "I just wondered if it was still open."

"Hell, yes, honey," he said. "Are you interested?"

Lily gritted her teeth. Honey!

"What does it pay?" she asked.

"Can you cook?" he fired back.

"Yes, I can cook. I wouldn't be asking otherwise," Lily said sharply.

The amount he named made her stop and take a second look at the ad.

"You mean you're paying that much just for a cook? Who in God's name are you feeding?"

Case sat up in bed, wiped his hand across his face, and smiled to himself. He liked the spunky sound of her voice.

"More than a dozen men who're helping with spring roundup. It's three meals a day, six days a week, and a place to sleep. Take it or leave it." And then before he forgot, he added, "The job is only temporary. Three months and then the extra help I've hired is gone. I don't keep a cook year-round. Most of my regular help is married. They have their own cooks."

Lily was silent, her mind racing as she absorbed the implications of disappearing for three months to get her head and life back in order. The thought was intriguing.

"Well," the man drawled, "are you interested?"

"When do I start?" Lily couldn't believe she'd just said that.

"When can you get here?" he fired back.

"Give me two days to get my life in order and my plane tickets, and the directions to your ranch. You just hired yourself a cook."

"Good," he said. "Just hurry. If the men have to eat much more of Pete's cooking, they're going to leave. But never mind about directions. When you get a flight number, call back. I'll have someone pick you up in Oklahoma City."

"Right," she answered, and then hung up the phone with shaky hands. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. What in heaven's name had she just done?

The Oklahoma airport was unfamiliar. And, like all airports, her plane had landed at one end of the building, and her luggage was to be retrieved at the other on a different level. It figured.

She'd just pulled the last bag from the conveyor when she heard her name being paged. Bags in tow behind her on a wheeled luggage carrier, she started in search of the Information Booth where she'd been ordered to appear. She didn't know who or what to expect. Neither she nor Mr. Longren had had the foresight to give each other any identifying characteristics. Lily's reason was painfully obvious as she ignored the curious glances of the people she passed. How would she have worded it? Just look for the blonde with her face in pieces? The best she could hope for was to look for someone wearing a cowboy hat. Surely that would help. The people lived and worked on a ranch, they must look like cowboys. It was a bad idea. She changed her tactics and searched the area for someone who seemed to be waiting. Once again, nearly everyone she saw fit that description.

"You wouldn't be the cook?"

The voice behind her sent her spinning around. She looked down into the wizened face of the tiniest man she'd ever seen. He couldn't have been much over five feet tall, but he was wearing a tall hat and boots to match that added several inches to his diminutive size.

"Excuse me?" Lily asked, trying not to stare at the maze of wrinkles running down his face. It reminded her of her own mark, and she unconsciously touched her cheek with her fingers.

"I said, you wouldn't by any chance be the cook for Longren Ranch, would you? I don't suppose we'd be this lucky." The grin that accompanied his remark made Lily smile in return.

"Are you Mr. Longren?"

"Shoot no, miss," he cackled. "Name's Arloe, Arloe Duffy, but you can call me Duff. Everyone else does. I guess that means you're Miss Brownfield."

"Call me Lily," she said, and watched the little man's face for a sign that would indicate he was shocked or disgusted by her slow-healing injuries. There was none.

"Lily it is," he crowed. "Boy howdy, the guys are gonna eat crow tonight when they get a look at you. They been expectin' some old lady on her last pegs."

"Why in the world would they think that?" Lily asked.

"Who else would want to come bury herself in a kitchen for the better part of three months except someone who ain't got anything better to do?"

Duff realized the moment he'd spoken that he might have just put his entire booted foot in his mouth. He blushed, started to stammer and then yanked his hat off his head. Fuzzy tofts of grey hair sprang up in wild abandon. He smashed his hat against his chest in abject apology.

"Shoot, Miss Lily. Don't mind me. I ain't seen anyone as young and purty as you in a month of Sundays. It just clabbered my brain. You know what I mean, and alls I can say is we're real proud to have you at the Bar L. Especially if you can cook better than Pete."

Hearing Duff say that she was young and pretty went a long way toward soothing the ache in her heart, even if she didn't quite believe he meant it.

"Well," she answered, "I don't know about Pete's cooking. But I have a father and four older brothers who can certainly vouch for mine. I can cook just about anything, and lots of it."

"Ooooee," Duff crowed. "I can hardly wait. Come on Miss Lily, let's get crackin'." He shoved the crumpled hat back on his head, grabbed her luggage, and motioned for her to follow. They headed down a long hallway.

"Call me Lily," she reminded him, but he was too far ahead of her to hear. She hitched at the waistband of her pink linen slacks, smoothed the short matching jacket down to her slender waist, and followed the little man as fast as she could.

"Here it is," Duff announced, as he turned into another set of gates, the sixth since leaving the main highway, and pointed toward a white, two-story house and a multitude of outbuildings.

"It looks like the house on that television show, Dallas " Lily replied.

"What? You mean Southfork? That's just across the border into Texas. I seen it a couple of times myself."

Lily's mouth dropped. "You mean it really exists?"

"Sure," Duff answered. "Different folks own it now, and call it by a different name, but it's still the same place. Look," Duff pointed, "there's the boss now."

Lily stared. She couldn't make out one man from the other. All she could see were cows milling, calves bawling, men running, and dust . . . everywhere.

She got out of the blue pickup truck, dusted off her pink slacks and jacket, and adjusted her sunglasses. She smoothed the honey-colored fall of her ha« slightly across her left cheek to hide as much as possible of her scarred face and tried not to wrinkle her nose at the pungent aroma of fresh manure and dust that assailed her.

"How can I tell which one is . . . ?"

Her words froze in the back of her throat as one tall, dusty man separated himself from the melee and turned to face them. His stance was instantly still and out of place in the constantly moving scene before her. Something about his demeanor made her think of ancient kings and royalty. It had to do with the way he ignored the chaos around him and the way he cocked his head back as he looked their way.

Lily's heart jumped, and she resisted the urge to turn and run. Even from this distance she could tell he was big . . . very big . . . and he was coming their way.

Case Longren was hot, dirty, and sick to death of the smell of dust and blood. They'd been cutting young bulls all morning, deftly removing their ability to sire young with one swift stroke of the knife and thereby turning them into steers that would eventually find their way to someone's dinner table.

He'd almost forgotten that today was the day his
new cook was to arrive. In fact, he had forgotten it
until he'd seen Duff's blue pickup truck turning into
the yard. He watched out of the corner of his eye
for a glimpse of his new hired hand. It was the first
time he'd ever done anything as foolish as hire some-
one, sight unseen, no references asked, over a phone.
He absently wondered if he'd just bought the prover-
bial "pig in a poke."                                                              
^s

His wandering thoughts slammed into his gut with rude force as the pickup door opened and a young, blond woman emerged, towering over little Duff by nearly a foot.

"Sweet bird of youth," he muttered, and tossed the end of his rope to one of the men nearby. She wasn't a pig, that much was evident, but she was damn sure pink . . . and as out of place as a heifer in a pen full of steers. "Here, Harris. Help the boys finish up here. I'll be back later."

Something was different about this lady. He could tell that even from a distance. Case knew women, and this one didn't fidget or preen. She stood stock-still, letting the dust and wind carry whatever came her way without shading her face or brushing at her clothing. In fact, the closer he came, the more he imagined that she was holding her breath. He scoffed at himself as being fanciful and started worrying about what he was going to do with her. Surely to God she wasn't actually a cook by trade. He could tell by the cut of her clothes and hairstyle that money played a part in her life.

"Miss Brownfield?" he asked, hoping that he'd been wrong about her identity.

Maybe the cook was coming on the next flight. But his hopes were dashed when she nodded her head slightly and held out her hand. If she'd just handed him a snake, he wouldn't have been more surprised. There was no way he could shake her hand. She had no idea what all he'd been doing with it all morning.

"I'm sorry," he said, and pointed back at the men and cattle, hoping that she'd understand without going into details, "I'm too dirty to shake hands with you, miss."

"I'll wash, Mr. Longren," Lily said quietly, and grasped his hand and shook it before he had time to object.

Lightning!

Case blinked and looked up, expecting to see thunderheads boiling overhead. No clouds, no nothing but the ever-present sun burning down on top of them. He stared blankly at the slender hand still grasping his huge, dirty one, then back up at her face, hidden by sunglasses and that glorious mane of hair, and dropped it as if he'd just been burned.

"Miss Brownfield, you'll have to pardon my asking, but surely cooking is not your chosen profession?"

Lily looked into his dust-covered face, the three-day growth of thick, black stubble shaded by a wide-brimmed, black Stetson, also covered in a thin, persistent layer of dust, and saw blue so clear that she felt she was staring into pieces of the sky behind him.

She stifled the gasp that shot up her throat and knew that those piercing sky-blue eyes would see everything. Instantly, she turned her face slightly, unwilling just yet to see the look of shock she knew would come when he saw her face.

"No," she finally answered, staring at a spot just over his shoulder, "but I can cook, and you said I could come. Does this mean you're sending me away without even a trial period?"

The pain in her voice was evident, yet her demeanor betrayed none of the fear she was experiencing.

"Hell, no!" he said sharply. "My word is good. I'm just surprised, that's all."

He turned to Duff, who was standing to one side and grinning from ear to ear.

Arloe Duffy knew just how the boss felt. The lady had knocked him sideways, too. She was a real looker. And that little ol' scratch on her face didn't amount to much.

"Take her stuff to the house, Duff. I'll walk up with Miss Brownfield. We'll talk on the way."