LITMIR.BIZ

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in New Mexico has had a wonderful effect on my mother’s health. We’re hoping to remain here permanently, if possible. Mum and I have been traveling, and we’re getting to the end of my legal time here. Filing the paperwork has been a very slow process. But I don’t see what that has to do with you, or—” Her expression suddenly changed from ire to horror. “You think Jonas sent you out here so I could snare you into marrying me! Because I’m his ex-fiancée? You think I just need another man to make all my problems go away, and Jonas sent you as some kind of consolation prize.”

      He smiled. “Don’t look so shocked, cupcake.”

      She shook her head. “You’re dumb. I’m going inside, and I hope our paths cross very rarely.”

      “Hang on a second.”

      He didn’t think she’d stop, but to his surprise, she turned to look at him with all the misgiving she’d probably have when eyeing a coyote. “What?”

      “What’s your name? I can’t just call you Irish.”

      “My name is Chelsea Myers, but I prefer you don’t call me anything. Look.” She gave him a mulish glare. “I don’t believe Jonas would try to get us together—”

      “You don’t know the Callahans all that well, then. They’re notorious for their practical jokes.”

      “The two of us getting together would indeed be a joke. Jonas promised me I would have nothing but peace and quiet here for my writing. Peace and quiet is what I need, or I can’t work. Does that make sense to you?” She gave Gage a look that quite clearly said he was probably incapable of understanding much of anything. “So if you like brawling, loud music or wild nights with the ladies, you’ll need to go into town for all that.”

      “Sure thing, sweetie.” He picked up his duffel and strode past her into the house.

      “What are you doing?”

      “If we’re going by Jonas’s rules, then I’m staying in here. He said nothing about a redhead with an attitude disturbing me on my own personal time-out. He said nothing about sleeping in a ramshackle bunkhouse or a caving-in barn. He said there was a quaint, newly furnished though spartan farmhouse I could live in while I create his horse program and rebuild this joint. And if you don’t mind, Miss Myers,” he said, his tone deliberately soft to let her know he did mind very much, “I abhor the sound of a TV, especially the soap operas you ladies love, and most particularly reality TV. When I come home at night, I want no bickering, no bossing and no busybodying interrupting my routine. Got that?” He glanced around, seeing the redheaded storm about to erupt, and spoke to forestall it. “Now, where’s Ma Myers? I’d like to introduce myself.”

      “She won’t be here until tomorrow. She’s in Diablo helping Fiona Callahan pickle vegetables for the Fourth of July family celebration. Never mind about my mother,” Chelsea said. “We can’t both stay in this house.”

      “There’s a barn and a bunkhouse,” he reminded her.

      Her lips pressed flat again. “Mum and I will take the upstairs, you will take the downstairs.”

      He glanced around, liking the look of the place. Jonas hadn’t been far off when he’d said it was almost new inside. He’d begun renovating the house first, then hired Gage to whip the rest of the ranch into shape. “Fine,” he said. “I leave early, come in late.”

      “I couldn’t care less what you do.”

      “I just don’t want to catch you wandering around in your nightie, sweetheart.”

      “I promise not to wander around in my nightie,” Chelsea said, her voice oh-so-sweet, “if you don’t mind leaving your boots on the porch. The hardwood floors are new.”

      She had him there. His own mother would have already read him the riot act—he and his brothers and sister had learned to leave their boots outside or in the mudroom from the time they were old enough to wear them. He’d be better off dealing with a scorpion in his boot than his mother catching him wearing them in the house. “Deal. Pleasure doing business with you, Miss.”

      “Whatever,” Chelsea said, and went up the stairs.

      He watched her climb, his mouth curving a bit at the sight of female hips swaying ever so enticingly. She was a mouthy little thing, but he didn’t mind mouthy so much. Mouthy could be tamed.

      “One more thing I need to mention,” he called up the stairs.

      “What now?”

      “My daughter is arriving tomorrow, so she’ll be staying here with me.”

      Chelsea appeared at the top of the stairs. “Daughter?”

      Gage nodded. “Yeah. Cat and her mom have been having a bit of mom-daughter drama. Cat’s thirteen, so she and Leslie, my ex-wife, want a small break from each other.”

      Chelsea’s eyebrows rose. “Small break? Like a couple of days?”

      He shrugged. “Like the rest of summer vacation. Jonas said this was probably the perfect place for Cat and me to get to know each other better.”

      “I see.”

      Gage saw that Chelsea did in fact “see” and wasn’t pleased. “I don’t imagine a teenager will be much of a bother.”

      Chelsea disappeared from view. He went into the kitchen to check out the grub in the fridge—he’d need to make a grocery run before Cat arrived.

      He hadn’t been quite candid about his daughter. According to Leslie, she was a handful and they were always squabbling. Gage had offered to bring Cat out here for the summer to give mom and daughter a respite from each other, but he’d thought it’d be just the two of them.

      Now it would be the four of them, one big, not-too-happy group.

      * * *

      CHELSEA WAS NOT HAPPY with Jonas Callahan, or the cowboy downstairs. Jonas was a fink for not telling her of his plans—he’d said Dark Diablo would be the perfect place to write and for her mother’s health, saying nothing about a man and his teenage daughter living with them. This Gage Phillips—a handsome man with scoundrel written all over him, from his easy grin to his dark brown eyes that twinkled with mischief—clearly had issues. “Marriage, indeed,” Chelsea muttered. “I’m not that desperate to be legal in this country. I’ll stick with the slow-as-a-turtle process, thanks, Jonas.”

      She was going to kill the eldest Callahan like a character in her mystery novels.

      Of course, she didn’t have to stay here. She could tell Jonas the deal was off. Her laptop was portable; she could write anywhere, couldn’t she? But truthfully, her mother would be comfortable here. They’d spent several months traveling, seeing the sights on a once-in-a-lifetime journey together. Dark Diablo was an ideal setting for her mother to rest for a while.

      “I’m not leaving. Jonas wouldn’t try to fix me up,” she said to the open laptop where her protagonist, Bronwyn Sang, hung helplessly from a steep cliffside that the ruthless murderer had pushed her over. Bronwyn would have to dangle a little while longer, unfortunately. In the meantime, Chelsea was determined to keep so much distance between herself and Gage that he’d never even see her.

      She was too ticked to write now. A nice, cold swim in the creek Jonas was so proud of was the answer. Hearing a truck door slam before an engine started and left the property—safe, for the moment!—Chelsea tossed on her emerald-green polka-dotted bikini, grabbed a towel and flip-flops and headed out. Exercise was what every writer needed to clear her head, and if Bronwyn was ever going to be rescued so she could live to fight another day, Chelsea had to get her boiling-hot emotions refocused.

      In other words, she had to forget about the fact that Gage Phillips, in spite of all the “No” signs flashing all over him, was so devil-may-care, so bad-boy, that of course her hormones had noticed—she’d have to be dead not to. He was the call of the wild she’d always dreamed of, a Texas

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