The Humbug Man (2 page)

Her eyebrows arched. Just because they’d never spoken to each other before was no reason for him to pretend he didn’t know who she was. He’d at least seen her a time or two. “Of course,” she said.

“I found her under a cabbage leaf,” Blake volunteered with twinkling green eyes.

Hollister wasn’t amused and after a moment, returned to the subject. “What about the other men?” he asked.

“They’re out doing God knows what.” She sighed. “We’ve only been here three days and I can’t get one of them to stand still long enough to listen to anything I say. And the man who fixes the electrical generator is—” she hesitated, eyeing Hollister “—indisposed.”

“He’s out in the bunkhouse drunk,” Blake countered, grinning when she glared at him. “Well, he is. I looked in the window.”

“Honest to God, you’ll die up here in a week,” Hollister muttered, glaring at both of them. “City greenhorns! Why in hell didn’t you stay in New Mexico where you belong?”

“Arizona,” Maggie corrected. “And we don’t really belong there. Blake and I moved there from Tennessee.”

“Southerners,” Hollister grumbled. “Easterners.”

She hated that cold, arrogant black stare. She drew herself up to her full height and still had to tilt her head back to look at him. He made her home state sound like the worst kind of insult. Maggie lifted her chin, and her gray eyes sparkled like flint chips. “Well, let me tell you, Mr. Hollister, if I was back home, I’d have plenty of willing help,” she replied. “These men seem to think they’re being paid by the tooth fairy, and the only mechanic I’ve got can’t walk unless he’s carrying a bottle of beer!”

He didn’t even flick an eyelash. “No cowboy in his right mind is going to take orders from a city woman with no savvy about ranching. As for the generator, I can fix that.”

He antagonized her as no man in her life ever had. She wanted to tell him what he could do with his offer. Damned bossy so-and-so…!

“Well?” he asked, glaring. “I can’t work and shine a light all at once. Get me a flashlight, boy.”

Blake didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir!” he said smartly and rushed off to look for one.

“Don’t order my son around,” Maggie said quietly. “I don’t like other people telling him what to do.”

“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have jailed him in a military school,” he returned coldly, shocking her because she hadn’t realized he knew so much about Blake.

She caught her breath, but before she could say anything, Blake was back with the flashlight. “I’ll come and hold it for you,” he offered.

“Your mother can do that,” he replied with an arrogant smile. “Or don’t you know how?”

Her gray eyes flashed, and it was a good thing she didn’t see the expression of unholy glee on Blake’s face as all his secret plans for bringing these two together seemed to be coming true.

“I’m an executive secretary for a printing corporation,” she informed him with blatant hostility. “I can do a lot more than hold a light.”

“Oh, I can see how valuable you’d be in an emergency, with all that specialized knowledge,” he agreed and turned to open the door. “Get a coat on.”

She absolutely gasped. In all her life, she’d never run into anybody like him. He threw out orders like a drill sergeant. And it didn’t help that Blake was sitting there with a book on his lap, looking the picture of a studious, polite boy. She stuck out her tongue at him as she put on her leather jacket, and he grinned like a Cheshire cat.

“I’ll get you for this,” she mouthed at him and left him giggling on the sofa.

She followed the big man around the house, because he hadn’t even bothered to wait for her to trudge through the snow with him. He had the flashlight in one enormous gloved hand. He paused by the housing that protected the generator, then thrust the flashlight at her while he uncovered the apparatus and then studied it silently.

“Hold the light on the damned thing, if you please,” he shot at Maggie. “I can’t see in the dark.”

“My God.” She whistled. “And you’re actually admitting it?”

He muttered something she was glad she couldn’t understand.

She grinned as she leveled the flashlight. Odd how refreshing it was to have a man actively dislike her. Most men seemed to feel obliged to chase her. This one wouldn’t chase anybody, she mused. He wasn’t a marrying man or a particularly romantic one, and it was really fun to antagonize him. She’d never tried to deliberately upset a man before, but it was wildly exhilarating. She felt alive in a way she hadn’t for over ten years. Strange, really, since Hollister was the last man in the world she could feel an attraction for.

Hollister paused and scowled down at the generator. “This damned thing came over with the Ark,” he muttered. “I don’t understand why your father-in-law didn’t replace it.”

“He probably liked eating,” she remarked, pulling her stocking cap over her ears. Snow was falling again. “He wasn’t a wealthy man.”

“Could have been,” he murmured as he stripped off his gloves to reveal huge but elegant hands, which were long-fingered and darkly tanned—capable hands, with callused ridges on the finger pads. “But he kept putting off things.”

“Maybe he thought money would corrupt him,” she suggested.

His big shoulders shrugged. “It can.” He caught her hand that was holding the light and positioned it where he wanted the beam with no regard for her posture. His hand was warm over her own, and curious little tingles went down her spine until he released his brief hold. “Keep it there,” he said absently, scowling under the brim of his hat. “Damn. I hope I can splice that wire….”

He pulled out a pocketknife while Maggie watched with fascination. He was a fixer. Most men were, but this one did it with such style. She studied his profile in the faint radiance of the flashlight, fascinated with its hardness, the uncompromising nature it revealed.

He seemed to feel her intent scrutiny because his head turned. His black eyes caught hers and held them, penetrating, questioning. “Well?” he asked curtly.

“You have an interesting hairline,” she improvised. Her voice sounded odd. Probably because lightning was running down her spine from that intent black stare.

He lifted a shaggy eyebrow as if he thought she might need immediate mental counseling. “That’s a new one.”

“Thanks,” she said with a grin. “I thought it up all by myself, too.”

He tilted his hat back as he worked with the generator. “What the hell are you and the boy doing up here by yourselves?” he asked suddenly.

It was none of his business, and she almost said so. But she stopped herself in time—it wouldn’t do to antagonize a man when he was that close to fixing her generator.

“It’s almost Christmas. Blake wanted to spend some time with me,” she said finally. “He doesn’t really like military school, and I think he’s out to convince me that I can run a ranch in the wilds of Montana while he sits on a fence and hero-worships you.”

He looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry. It slipped out.” She leaned against the wall, holding the light steady.

But he wasn’t moving. His dark eyes were fixed on her face. “I said: I beg your pardon, lady.”

How in the world could a man make an insult of the word lady, she wondered absently. She shifted. “Blake likes you.”

“Well, I’m not much on boys,” he returned shortly. “Or city women. Or even neighbors. I live alone and I like my privacy. I don’t intend having it invaded by your son.”

“That’s plain enough,” she returned, feeling her temper start to rise. “Now let me tell you something. I don’t like men in general and you in particular, and what I think of your type of man would fill a book! As for my son, he’s only nine years old and he never knew his father. His grandfather is the only male besides you that he’s ever spent any time around. And Papa Jeffries was kind and gentle and loving—the exact opposite of you. Blake doesn’t know what a man is, so you’ll have to forgive his attachment to you!”

His left eye had narrowed and his jaw was clenched. “You are playing one dangerous game, lady,” he said shortly.

“I’m so sorry if I’ve offended you, Mr. Hollister,” she replied coolly. “And I promise you Blake won’t be allowed within a mile of you for the entire two weeks we’re in residence.”

“You won’t last two weeks if you don’t get this outfit into shape,” he said shortly as he looped a wire and stayed it with a screw. “There. Let’s try it now.”

He replaced the cover and started the generator. Maggie had to concede that Hollister was good with his hands. He was lucky, she thought venomously, that he had something to make up for his lack of looks.

Hollister slid his gloves back on and didn’t glance at her. She brought back painful memories, she and her son. It had been six years, but he still grieved for his own family. He didn’t want or need complications, but this woman could get under his skin. And that irritated him. She opened his wounds and made them bleed. The boy rubbed salt in them.

Blake opened the door and let them back in. “The heater’s running!” He grinned up at the big, unsmiling man. “Thanks, Mr. Hollister. We’d have frozen to death but for you.”

Hollister’s black eyes went over that boyish face with something less than affection. The boy looked like a boy—all uncombed hair and eyes that sparkled with mischief. Just like his mother. The pair of them were going to give him problems. He could feel it in his bones. He missed the old man, because Jeffries had never bothered him. But Blake had, at every opportunity. When he’d come to visit Jeffries for the summer, Tate couldn’t walk for bumping into him. It had been irritating at first, and then frankly painful. He’d been glad when the boy left at the end of summer and went back to school. Now here he was back again, and Hollister was feeling the same old stabs of memory, only they were worse. Because now she was here, too, and he’d been a hell of a long time without a woman. She aroused sensations that he’d forgotten he could feel, and he hated them. Damn it, he hated the world…!

Maggie glanced at him, surprised by his cold reaction to Blake’s gratitude. He was a cold man, though, she thought as she got out of her cap and jacket and boots. Thank God he wasn’t going to be around very much.

“Yes, thank you for fixing the generator,” Maggie agreed. “I suppose you need to get home, so I won’t offer to make coffee….”

She didn’t want to, she meant. Oddly enough, that irritated Hollister. He didn’t like the way she reacted to him. He knew he wasn’t pretty, for God’s sake, but did she have to make it so obvious that she found him ugly?

“Those cattle have got to be moved. I’ll find your men and set them to it.”

“Thank you,” she said, deciding against arguing because it would only keep him here longer, and she didn’t want that.

“Wouldn’t you like a cup of coffee?” Blake invited, while Maggie felt herself choking. No, Blake, she moaned inwardly.

Hollister saw that look in her eyes and just for the hell of it, he said yes.

Maggie forced a smile to her lips. Be generous, she told herself. He fixed the generator. You won’t freeze. The least you can do is give the poor cold man a cup of hot coffee. If only she could have managed to get him in the pot with it….

“What do you take in your coffee, Mr. Hollister?” she asked with forced sweetness.

He took off his hat, revealing his thick black hair. Snow flaked from the hat as he placed it on the hat rack and shed his thick coat. Under it he was wearing a red flannel plaid shirt and as near as she could tell, no undershirt. The flannel was unbuttoned halfway down his brawny dark chest, and it had the thickest covering of hair she’d ever seen on a man.

She stared at him. She couldn’t help it. Despite her very brief marriage, she knew almost nothing about men. Bob had been as inexperienced as she, and as shy, so she’d learned little during those few fumbling encounters in the dark. But Hollister had a savage masculinity, an untamed look that made her blood run crazy and her pulse do unexpected things. She didn’t even like him, but he had a dangerously sensual appeal. She forced her eyes back to the white mugs she was pouring coffee into.

“I take my coffee black, Mrs. Jeffries,” Hollister said quietly.

She’d known that somehow before she’d posed the question. He looked that kind of man. No frills, no embellishments. She’d have bet that he drank his whiskey straight and never put catsup on his meat. She looked up as he came close to take the cup, smelling of wind and fir trees and leather.

“I’ll bet you never put catsup on a steak,” she said without thinking.

He searched her eyes curiously. “As a matter of fact, I don’t,” he agreed. His heavy brows moved together faintly. “What brought that on?”

She dropped her eyes to her coffee. “I don’t know.” She lifted it, even though it was hot. Involuntarily her gaze went to Hollister’s hands. They fascinated her, now that she knew how capable they were. They were huge. Lean. Darkly tanned, with thick hair on the wrists and hard muscle in the long fingers. Flat nails, very clean. She could imagine those hands doing anything that was necessary on a ranch, from fixing generators to helping a calf be born.

“Do you still have that big Aberdeen Angus bull, Mr. Hollister?” Blake asked. He’d joined them at the table and was sipping a cola from a can he’d gotten out of the refrigerator.

Hollister hated having the boy ask him questions. But the youngster had a natural feel for ranching, and he remembered vividly the ease with which Blake had helped old man Jeffries deliver a calf and doctor one of the bulls. “I’ve still got him,” he replied tersely. He glanced at Blake, his eyes suddenly curious, losing their sharp edge as he realized that the boy was really interested and not just asking inane questions. “And I’ve bought a new Hereford crossbreed bull as well. I’m doing a three-one cross this next year. Angus to Beefmaster, Beefmaster to Hereford, and back to Angus again.”

“Angus are easy calvers,” Blake said knowledgeably. “And Herefords are hardy. And Beefmasters are good choice grade beef.”

“With good weight gains ratios,” Hollister agreed. The boy had been putting in some study to learn all that. He was impressed despite himself. “I had to sell my Brangus bulls. After two years of inbreeding, you can create some problems for yourself if you don’t introduce some new blood into your herd.”