Leftover Love (12 page)

As she gazed into the warm and smoldering light in his dark eyes, Layne marveled at the contrast between this time and their previous encounter. A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth, still warm from his kiss.

“I knew you could be gentle,” she told him in a softly husky voice.

Something leaped into his eyes that made her catch her breath, then an invisible shutter fell to hide it. His head
dipped away from her. The moment of intimacy passed with an abruptness that almost negated it. Creed shifted position, lifting the crushing weight of his body from hers. She hadn’t noticed he was so heavy until the pressure was removed. When Layne heard the cattle bellowing impatiently in the field, she realized she had been oblivious to many things.

“We’d better get this hay out to the stock.” Creed’s voice was so low and gravelly that the wind nearly whipped away the words as he rolled to his feet.

He extended a hand to help her up—an uncharacteristic gesture of assistance from him, which seemed proof that the fiercely gentle passion they had shared had touched him in some way. When he had pulled her upright, her gaze tried to penetrate the expressionless set of his features. He returned her look for an instant, a vague hesitancy showing in his dark eyes before they hardened into blankness.

“Under the circumstances, I’ll drive the tractor,” he stated.

“I thought you were tired,” Layne protested as Creed vaulted off the flat rack to the frozen ground.

“That north wind is cold enough to keep me awake.” Creed threw the answer over his shoulder as he walked to the tractor.

His remark made her conscious of the bitter blast of frigid air blowing on her face and chilling her lips, which only moments before had been heated by him. Layne hunched her shoulders against the wind and sought the protection of the hay bales, sitting down and resting against the shelter of their stacks.

While the tractor and hayrack bounced across the rutted pasture, she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and hugged her body to keep alive the sensations so she
could examine these new feelings. This sexual attraction seemed to have sprung from nowhere.

How long had she known Creed —a month? Certainly not much more than that. Never once had she regarded him as a potential lover. Creed Dawson was unquestionably a homely man, yet she had never denied that he had an animal quality about him that was both male and virile.

But if it was merely male companionship she wanted, the physical caress of a man, then Hoyt seemed the more likely candidate. Layne continued to puzzle over her reaction to this hungry bear of a man.

In the parking lot outside the café he’d been so rough with her, deliberately repelling her with his advances. Only now did she remember the compliments that had preceded the savagely cruel kiss—the remarks he’d made about the color of her hair and the smell of her skin, the tautly suppressed emotions that had vibrated in his voice. The suspicion formed that Creed had been attracted to her before that night—a grudging attraction.

But if that was so, it didn’t explain why he had shown no regret over the way he’d treated her. Layne was confused, and she was usually so good at reasoning things out calmly and analytically. But none of it made sense—not her attraction for him nor his behavior toward her.

The tractor had slowed and the cattle were crowding around the hayrack before Layne noticed they had arrived at the feeding grounds. She scrambled to her feet and began to break the twine-bound bales to scatter the hay to the livestock. There wasn’t much time to consciously think about anything except the cold and the work and keeping her balance while the hayrack lumbered slowly over its route.

When the last bale was broken and tossed over the side, Layne slumped tiredly against the upright post at the tail of
the rack to make the long, cold ride back to the ranch yard. Once they had cleared the feeding cattle, the tractor rumbled to an unexpected stop. Layne glanced curiously at Creed, wondering what was wrong. He half turned in the seat and motioned to her.

Stiff with cold, she awkwardly swung off the rack to the ground and walked to the tractor. When she looked up, Creed was watching her. The collar of his parka was turned up against the invading wind, the bulk material adding to his massive appearance. The tractor motor continued to idle noisily.

“Do you want to learn to drive this thing?” he asked, raising his voice to make himself heard.

The question briefly took her by surprise, but she didn’t hesitate in her answer. “Sure.”

As she climbed onto the tractor Creed slid out of the tractor seat to stand beside it, hanging on to the back of it for balance. This time his instructions to her were clear and precise. Once she understood, she had no trouble mastering the tractor.

When the hayrack had cleared the pasture gate, she stopped the tractor and switched off its motor. There was a faintly triumphant gleam in her eye when she looked at Creed.

“Don’t you have any more comments you’d like to make about women drivers?” She dryly teased him about his reaction to her previous attempt at operating the tractor that had felled him with the toppling hay bales.

“They do all right when they have a man to teach them.” His low voice mocked her with a deliberately chauvinistic statement.

Laughter came from her throat, warm and easy. She liked the quickness of his mind and that ability to match her dry humor.

As Creed stepped to the ground Layne swung out of the tractor seat to follow him. His gloved hands were there to lift her, and his strength made her feel almost weightless when he swung her down. They were standing toe to toe, and her hands remained on his arms. Her gaze searched his features, trying to decide what it was about his outlaw-rough exterior that she found so strangely handsome.

“Do you know you actually had me convinced that you didn’t like me?” Layne tipped her head to the side as she made the subtly challenging remark.

“Did I?” It was neither a question nor an answer.

“Why?” she persisted. “You’re an intelligent man. I don’t understand why you would want me to think that.”

“It shouldn’t be so hard to figure out. No man with any pride wants to look the fool. A beautiful woman like you can do that to a man without half trying.” There was a faint narrowing of his gaze.

“I doubt that.” She lightly scoffed at the implication that she was some sort of femme fatale.

“Do you? Look at me and tell me what you see,” Creed challenged with seeming idleness. Words momentarily failed her as Layne searched for a response that was both tactful and complimentary. His mouth tightened at her small hesitation. “That’s what I thought.” He appeared to smile, but there was no warmth or amusement in the fleeting expression. “Your parents taught you well. If you can’t think of anything good to say about a person, don’t talk at all.”

“Creed, that’s not fair.” Her hands dropped into fists at her side as he stepped away from her. She was impatient with him for reading something into her silence that didn’t exist.

“Why? I wasn’t looking for a compliment—only the truth. It shouldn’t be a difficult thing to have between
friends.” There was a faint stress on the last word that seemed to draw a line on the limits of their relationship. “Go shut the gate before the cattle get out.” He hauled himself into the tractor seat once more, effectively bringing an end to the conversation by starting the motor.

Irritated with herself for not speaking plainly, Layne stalked to the open gate. She had been trying to protect his feelings and instead wound up spoiling things. The truth was that she still wasn’t comfortable with this attraction for such a rugged, homely man.

All day and throughout supper Layne was preoccupied with her troubled thoughts. She didn’t understand the cause of Creed’s ambivalence toward her. The most logical course of action would be to confront him with it. In the process she might settle some of her own uncertainties.

With a decision at last made, she wasted no time in following through with it. There was nothing to be gained by putting it off to another day, so Layne tugged on her light gray jacket and wrapped a blue and gray plaid scarf around her bare head. Her boots clumped loudly on the steps as she hurried down the stairs to the front door.

Mattie was watching television in the front room. She glanced curiously at Layne when she emerged from the stairwell, then darted a look at the mantel clock. Its hands were poised near the nine o’clock hour.

“Are you going out?” she questioned Layne, more out of surprise than a desire for an accounting of her movements.

“Just for a short walk.” Layne didn’t bother to explain that the short walk would take her to Creed’s house. She
didn’t want to make up an excuse about why she wanted to see him.

“Watch yourself. It’s bound to be icy out there,” Mattie advised and absently watched Layne until she went out the door before letting her attention return to the television screen.

There was a crystalline quality to the air as Layne stepped into the night. A full moon glittered like a big silver dollar, lighting the sky and flooding the ranch yard with its pale beams. Layne picked her way along the ice-slick foot trail through the trees to the second, smaller house. Woodsmoke was coming from its chimney and curling straight up in the windless night.

In the distance a coyote wailed its mournful cry to the moon, the only sound that accompanied the crunch of her footsteps. She was conscious of the frigid nip in the air, but her attention was too concentrated on the light shining from the window of the small house to pay much attention to the cold that turned her breath into a smoky vapor.

When she reached the front door, she paused only an instant, then opened the storm door and knocked on the inner door. The glass panes were steamed over. Even if she had tried, Layne couldn’t see inside. But there was only a short wait until the inside door was pulled open and she faced Creed. His gaze narrowed on her as she stood poised on the threshold.

“May I come in?” she requested when he failed to immediately invite her inside.

He inclined his head in an agreeing manner and stepped to the side to permit her entry. Layne walked past him into the main room, where logs glowed a cherry-red in the fireplace, blue-white flames licking over them. The room was small, and the oversized furniture in it was out of proportion to its dimensions but in keeping with the size of
the man who occupied the house. The tan leather sofa was long to accommodate Creed’s tall frame, and the recliner, too, was large to fit him comfortably. There was a gun rack on the wall where the desk stood. An oil painting of a wildlife scene occupied the only other vacant wall space.

Halfway into the room Layne turned to wait for him. Her scarf slipped off her chestnut hair and fell loosely about her neck. She unbuttoned her coat but made no attempt to take it off. Without looking at her, Creed walked to the fireplace and added a split log from the woodbox to the hot fire. Backlighted by the fire, his silhouette appeared so deceptively lean.

The flames crackled noisily over the new fuel to fill the silence. It became obvious to Layne that Creed was waiting for her to speak. She stifled a rush of irritation at his laconic obstinacy. As a teenager, she had often thought she wanted to fall in love with a man who was the strong and silent type. But after meeting one in the flesh, namely Creed Dawson, it seemed to be his silence she couldn’t stand.

“I came here tonight because I wanted to talk to you alone,” she stated.

“About what?” He sounded disinterested.

Remaining by the fireplace, Creed angled his body toward her and rested a foot on the raised hearth. The pale blue of his chambray shirt appeared almost white in the firelight as it stretched across his wide shoulders and tapered to his narrow hips. Most of the light in the room came from the fireplace. It softened the harsh contours of his face. A kind of tension knotted her stomach.

“I’d like to know just exactly what our relationship is supposed to be,” Layne said, coming straight to the point of her visit. “I don’t know whether we’re friend, foe, or what.”

“That’s simple,” he replied smoothly. “I’m the boss, and you’re the hired hand.”

“And you have a policy of not fraternizing with the hired help, is that it?” she guessed stiffly.

“No, it isn’t.” Creed appeared to be untouched by the tension that gripped her. “But to this point, that is the extent of our relationship. If you’ve read more into it than that, then it’s your problem.”

Struggling to keep her calm, Layne smiled coolly. “It’s funny that neither Stoney nor Hoyt mentioned to me that you are in the habit of kissing your help.”

Something close to a smile quirked his mouth, then he turned to prod at the fire with a brass-handled poker. “When a man finds a beautiful and willing female in his arms, it’s second nature to kiss her. But one kiss hardly changes anything. If you cross-examine every man who kisses you to see how it’s affected his attitude toward you, I pity them.”

He was making her sound like some romantic, idealistic fool. A hotly angry retort trembled on the edge of her tongue, but Layne swallowed it. This was not the first time she had questioned someone adept at avoiding the issue. She noticed a coffee cup sitting on the desk in the corner.

“I suppose you’re right.” She appeared to concede the point. “Acorns turn into oak trees, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that mountains grow out of molehills.” She rubbed her hands together as if to warm them. “Do you have any coffee? It’s awfully cold outside tonight.”

The upward slant of a thick brow seemed to silently speculate on the motive behind her request, but Creed didn’t comment on her forwardness, not only inviting herself into his house but also asking for refreshments.

“Sure.” He pushed away from the hearthstone and headed for the small kitchen Layne had noticed just to the right of the front door.

After unwinding the scarf from around her neck, she removed her coat and pulled the scarf through one of the sleeves. She draped her coat over the armrest of the sofa and wandered to the fireplace. From the kitchen she heard the clatter of a cup. She was forced to admit she had doubts in her mind, a question whether her imagination might have been overactive or that the attraction was all one-sided. Layne held out her hands to the heat radiating from the glowing logs.