LITMIR.BIZ

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      It was several more seconds before her mind cleared enough to tell her that she was in Sleepy River, Arizona, where she had run for a temporary refuge from family tensions and responsibilities.

      Exhaling a relieved sigh, she looked around and was pleased to see that the room didn’t seem quite as dauntingly colorful as it had the night before. In fact, the furnishings held a somewhat eclectic charm. The cheerful August sun streaming in the east-facing windows helped a great deal, sending a warm glow across the foot of the bed, the wooden floor and the cozy rug.

      Alexis yawned, stretched and stared at her bedside clock. Even though she’d barely had six hours of sleep, she felt refreshed. More than that, she felt eager. She would begin preparing for her new job today—as soon as she had convinced her reluctant host/school board chairman that her presence there was no mistake.

      She slipped out of bed and walked over to the window. Blinking in the bright morning sunlight, she gazed out at the view, and was pleasantly surprised to see an open pasture dotted with cattle in the distance. Towering pine, aspen and spruce trees covered the upslope of the nearest mountain and a fruit orchard grew nearby.

      It was a lovely, pastoral scene marred only by the faint, lingering stench of burned grass from last night’s fire.

      Wincing at the memory of her clumsiness, Alexis pulled away from the window and wondered how she was going to make up for that fiasco. Half-smiling, she remembered what her mother used to say, “Sometimes, all one can do is hold the head high and keep going, saying nothing.”

      Somehow, Alexis didn’t think that Jace followed that philosophy.

      What had he said? Ten minutes? Alexis glanced at the clock again. And she’d already wasted three. She scurried out of bed, grabbed some clothes from her suitcase and dashed for the bathroom.

      Jace looked dubiously around the breakfast table. Rocky and Gil had arrived earlier than usual. Since Jace was the best cook of the three of them, he cooked breakfast while Gil and Rocky did some outside chores, then came in, unshaven, grizzled and already dusty, to eat eggs, toast and bacon and slurp coffee while they discussed the day’s work.

      This morning, though, they hadn’t been able to make it outside for any chores because they’d been busy fighting over use of the bathroom. Jace had heard the unaccustomed weekday sounds of a couple of buzzing electric razors. He was then treated to the sight of his two hired men arriving in the kitchen with slicked-down hair, clean shirts, jeans and boots, wearing enough aftershave and cologne to knock over a nine-hundred-pound steer.

      “You two boys going somewhere?” he’d asked, staring first at one, then the other of them.

      “Nah,” they’d answered in harmony, then shuffled their feet and sat down. In unison, they turned to stare, unblinking, at the new schoolteacher’s bedroom door. They reminded him of a couple of coyotes waiting outside a prairie dog’s den for the tasty morsel to appear.

      When her bedroom door did open and she emerged, Alexis jumped back immediately, alarmed by the rush of two large male bodies in her direction. The cowboys bowed before her and she threw Jace an alarmed look over their bobbing heads. He fought a grin, pleased to see that for all her boldness, these two hired hands could perturb her.

      “Morning, Miss Chastain,” Gil said, grinning like a fool as he rose from his sweeping bow.

      “Did you sleep well, miss?” Rocky asked, elbowing his brother aside.

      Gil placed his booted foot in front of Rocky’s, reached out with his own elbow, and gave his brother a poke in the ribs that had Rocky’s eyes bugging from their sockets as he made a strangled sound.

      “F…fine,” she stammered, looking at Jace’s two crazed cowboys and then at him as if trying to figure out which way to run.

      “Boys,” he said mildly, strolling across the kitchen to take charge. “Quit crowding the lady. Let her sit down and have some breakfast.” He looked at her and nodded toward the table.

      She gave him a wobbly smile that had him focusing on her. Last night, he had been too caught up in his surprise and annoyance to notice much beyond her knockout looks and her insistence that she had come to stay.

      Now, he saw that she had courage, as well, because these two idiot cowboys hadn’t sent her shrieking back to her room. She also had compassion because she was still smiling at Gil and Rocky. Jace felt his interest in her growing and he didn’t like that at all. He frowned at the boys so furiously, they leaped to do his bidding.

      “Oh, oh yeah, sure Jace.” They both stood back, still grinning, as she skirted cautiously around them. As she reached to pull out a chair, the boys seemed to recall their manners and, as one, vaulted to do it for her. She saw them coming and managed to dart aside just in time to avoid being flattened in the rush. As it was, they tripped over each other, hissed a few expletives into each other’s ears, and had a minor skirmish, but they eventually dragged the chair out. They gazed at Alexis like a couple of puppies waiting for a treat. Jace decided it was time he took matters in hand.

      “You two sit down,” he ordered them. “You’re scaring the hel…heck out of her,” he growled. For a moment, he considered telling one of them to pour her some coffee, but realized that putting anything hot into their hands at this moment was just asking for trouble.

      He poured some for himself, and when he held up the pot inquiringly, she nodded and gave him a nervous smile as she seated herself.

      There was a moment of awkward hesitation before Gil and Rocky realized they were supposed to be passing food and hurriedly grabbed for platters of toast and eggs which they shoved at Alexis. Bewildered, she reached jerkily for them before the contents sailed down her shirtfront.

      Jace sighed. It was a good thing she would be leaving today or they would never get any more work done. He might be hoping for something that wasn’t going to happen, though. The real teacher they’d hired, Rachel Burrows, was only slightly less attractive than this woman.

      Still, he’d better send her on her way directly after breakfast because Gil and Rocky had some branding to do and the way things were going, they’d be decorating each other’s rumps with the Running M brand.

      He sipped his coffee as his gaze drifted over the bright red-brown fall of her hair. It cascaded down her back and contrasted with the pale gold camp shirt she wore with a pair of faded jeans. The combination of colors made him think of fall leaves, but her green eyes looked like spring.

      When he realized what direction his thoughts were taking, Jace choked on a sip of coffee and coughed several times. Alexis gave him a concerned look, but neither Gil nor Rocky spared him a glance. They were so enthralled with her that he could have dropped dead on the tabletop and they would have done no more than reach across his cold, stiff body to get the butter for her. Obviously, it was time he got this situation under control.

      “Miss Chastain, we appreciate you stopping by,” he began lamely. “But there’s been a mistake. You’re not the one we hired for the teaching position, so we’ll just wait until Miss Burrows comes, and…”

      “But she’s not coming,” Alexis interrupted, blinking those big green eyes at him.

      Gil and Rocky turned and stared at him as if he’d suddenly begun singing soprano. He ignored them.

      “Not coming?”

      “That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. You see, Rachel and I are old friends, college roommates, in fact. On her way here, she came to visit me at the pal…place…at my place, and said she had this job, but was going to have to call and resign from her contract, so I came instead.”

      Jace stared at her for a long moment, trying and failing to take this in. He leaned forward on one elbow and stared at her. In a dead-level voice he said, “She signed a contract. When a person signs a contract, they’re supposed to fulfill it, at least that’s the way the rest of the world does it.”

      “Uh, yes.” A nervous smile fluttered across those full lips.

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