LITMIR.BIZ

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you—”

      “There’s plenty of room,” he assured her before she could finish her attempt to cover her tracks.

      “Okay, then,” she said much too happily, when the truth was that just the thought of being that near to Jace on the truck’s bench seat raised her temperature another notch. Cowboy fever. If there was such a thing, she really thought she had it.

      But since there was no rectifying the situation, she went along with Jace and Willy to the truck, arriving on the driver’s side at the same moment Jace did.

      He reached in front of her and opened the door for her, then rounded the cab to deposit Willy in the car seat and buckle him in.

      That was accomplished by the time Clair slid in next to the child. But her welcome there was cold as Willy frowned at her as if she were intruding, then presented her with the back of his head, looking through the side window in yet another rejection of her.

      She really didn’t know what to do about him. But before she could come up with anything, Jace was behind the wheel and she was left torn between the child who didn’t want anything to do with her and the man whose very presence did too much to her.

      And all she could do was hope that the trip they were about to embark on was short.

      For a while, as Jace drove through town, neither of them said anything, and Clair was every bit as hyper-sensitive to his proximity as she’d feared she would be.

      The scent of his woodsy, clean-smelling aftershave didn’t help. In fact it almost seemed to intoxicate her and make her even more aware of every little detail about him. Even more vulnerable to what she thought had to be just plain animal magnetism.

      He seemed to be trying to give her as much space as he could, because he was hugging the driver’s side door, bracing his left elbow on the armrest and leaning his jawbone on his fist.

      It was actually a pretty relaxed way to drive since he was using his right wrist to control the steering wheel on the straightaways, leaving his hand to dangle on the other side of the wheel.

      But nothing could put more than an inch of distance between his thigh and hers, and Clair was excruciatingly aware of it. It left her with the inexplicable sense that she could feel the heat of that thigh seeping into her in a very sensual way….

      “How far is this ranch you work on?” she asked, to escape her own reaction to him and in the hope that it wouldn’t be long before they got to their destination.

      Jace looked at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled as if he could take offense to that question but chose not to. “The ranch is about ten miles outside of town. But I’m not a hired hand. It’s my family’s place. My place. My dad passed away three years ago after a heart attack, but my brothers and my mother and I keep it going.”

      “Brothers—those would be the uncles you mentioned?”

      “Right.”

      “I didn’t count, but it sounded like there are a lot of them.”

      “Five.”

      “No sisters?”

      “Nope. My dad always joked that my mom gave him sons because they couldn’t afford ranch hands.”

      “So all six sons make their living on your family’s ranch?”

      “Everybody but my brother Devon. He’s a veterinarian in Denver. The rest of us work the place, yeah, but we’ve all been known to pick up odd jobs here and there to supplement what the ranch brings in. My brother Josh, for instance, was just elected sheriff.”

      By then they were on the outskirts of Elk Creek, and Clair began to see what she assumed were ranches or farms—she couldn’t tell the difference. Basically what she saw were huge stretches of open countryside with an occasional large house, barn or outbuilding sitting far back from the road.

      Jace must have noticed her interest in the three houses they passed—all very impressive—because he said, “Our spread isn’t up to par with what you’re seein’ so far. We’re smaller.”

      There was a note to his voice that told her it was a sore spot with him.

      “So you live in town and just go out to your ranch to work? Is there not a house on it?”

      “Sure there’s a house. I grew up in it, and my mother and brothers still live there. I just moved into town when I became Willy’s guardian—that house belonged to Billy and Kim. Now, technically, it’s Willy’s. But I thought Willy had had enough trauma, and he didn’t need to be moved out to the ranch on top of everything else.”

      “It must be inconvenient for you to live in Elk Creek instead of on your land with your family, though.”

      “Some, but it’s no big deal. I may consider moving back with Willy later on, renting out the house in town. The money from something like that could pay for Willy’s education when the time comes. Then, after he’s all grown-up he can take the place over. But for now this is what’s best for him.”

      Clair glanced over at Willy. “So you’re already a homeowner, huh?” she joked.

      Willy looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language and turned his head again.

      “We’re just up the road,” Jace informed her as he turned off the main drag onto a flat dirt road that was a straight shot to a house that stood about a quarter of a mile ahead.

      As they drew nearer Clair could see more details. The house was a two-story square box. A steep, black, shingled roof dropped eaves over three multipaned windows on the top level, and a matching roof shaded a wraparound porch on the lower level.

      It was definitely not as fancy, as elaborate or as large as the houses they’d passed before, but it showed care in the flawless white paint and the black shutters that stood on either side of all the windows, including the two picture windows that looked out onto the porch.

      There were homey, loving touches in the twin carriage lamps that adorned the shutters that bracketed the door, in the planters that hung in the center of each section of the cross-buck railing that surrounded the porch, and in the old-fashioned spindled benches and high-backed rocking chairs situated here and there.

      But regardless of the care lavished on the place, it was still just an old farmhouse that couldn’t compare to those other houses they’d driven by.

      “Mop?” Willy said excitedly, as Jace drove around the house to the big red barn behind it.

      “She’s already gone by now, Willy. So’s everybody else.”

      “Mop?” Clair repeated.

      “That’s what he calls my mother. Near as we can tell he heard all of us calling her Mom, figured she wasn’t his mom, and settled for Mop.”

      “Mop,” Willy said again in confirmation, as if it made perfect sense.

      “We’re getting a late start today or the whole gang would be here and I’d introduce you. As it is, there’s no reason to go in when it’s the paddock fence I’m fixin’ today. But we have the run of the place if you need a bathroom or anything,” he informed her as he pulled the truck to a stop near the barn’s great door.

      “I can keep Willy out of your way while you work,” Clair suggested.

      “I hep you, Unca Ace,” Willy insisted, again with that two-year-old forcefulness, as if Clair were interfering.

      “Uncle Ace?” she parroted, unable to suppress a laugh as she did.

      “He doesn’t do too well with js,” Jace explained, giving her a sheepish grin that was so charming and endearing she didn’t have a doubt that it gave him tremendous leverage with whatever woman he used it on. Her included, although she didn’t want to admit it.

      Then, to Willy, he said, “Yep, you can help me. And maybe we’ll put Clair to work,

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