LITMIR.BIZ

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be all this fresh, invigorating mountain air.” Or something.

      “Well, I’m afraid you’re too early for breakfast.” Her voice was sharp as she reached for a metal pan on a shelf. “We don’t start serving until seven.”

      “I can wait.”

      She studied him for a moment, then pursed her lips together. “If you’re starving, there might be a few muffins left over from yesterday. And the coffee will be ready in a few moments.”

      Despite the grudging tone of voice, her words still reached in and tugged at his heart and he saw another ghostly reflection of the woman he had loved, the soft-hearted nurturer who hated to see anybody go hungry on her watch. Even him.

      “I’m fine,” he assured her. Better than fine. He thoroughly enjoyed watching her bustle around the kitchen, even though her movements were jerky and abrupt, without her customary elegant grace.

      His presence unnerved her. He could see it in the way she fumbled through drawers and rummaged blindly in the huge refrigerator.

      Under ordinary circumstances she probably knew this kitchen like she knew her own name, but you’d never be able to tell by her movements this morning.

      He found it very enlightening to see her composure slip. Enlightening and entertaining.

      Somewhat ashamed of himself for finding secret pleasure in the knowledge that he could fluster her so much just by invading her space, he straightened from the counter. “Can I help you do something?”

      She peered around the chrome door of the refrigerator to stare at him. “You mean like cook?”

      He shrugged. “I have been known to rattle a few pots from time to time.”

      Her gaze narrowed. “Why would the CEO of Maverick Enterprises volunteer to cook breakfast for ten hungry families?”

      Because the CEO of Maverick Enterprises has spent ten years mooning over the chef. “Maybe I’m bored.”

      “Don’t you have some kind of leveraged buyout or hostile takeover to mastermind somewhere?”

      “I’m all leveraged out this morning. And I’ve found takeovers to be generally much less hostile once I’ve had my morning coffee.”

      She didn’t return his smile, just watched him with that suspicion brimming out of her blue eyes. Finally he decided not to argue with her. Instead, he picked up a knife and went to work cutting up the green peppers she’d pulled from the refrigerator.

      “Am I doing this right?”

      She watched him for a moment, a baffled look on her features, then she shrugged. “You’re the boss. If you want to play souschef, don’t let me stop you. Dice the pieces a little smaller, though.”

      She returned to rifling through the refrigerator, and they worked in silence for a few moments, the only sounds in the kitchen the thud of the knife on the wooden cutting board and the delicate shattering of eggshells from across the room.

      He had a quick memory of other meals they had cooked together, when he had been free to sneak up behind her if the mood struck him. When he could wrap his arms around her and lift her long, thick hair to plant kisses on the spot right at the base of her neck that drove her crazy, until she would turn breathlessly into his arms, the meal forgotten.

      They had ruined more than one meal at the Diamond Harte together. He smiled at the mental picture, and of the slit-eyed look her older brother would give him when he would come in and find something burning on the stove and the two of them flushed and out of breath.

      Not caring for the direction of his thoughts or the awkward silence between them, he looked for a distraction, finally settling on what he thought would be a benign topic of conversation.

      “So how’s your family these days?” he asked.

      The egg she had just picked up slid out of her fingers and landed on the floor. She made no move to clean it up, just stood across the kitchen staring at him with her eyes murky and dark.

      He only meant to make a casual inquiry. What had he said? “Was that the wrong question?”

      “Coming from you, yeah, I’d say it’s the wrong question.” With color again high on her cheekbones, she snapped a handful of paper towels off a roll and bent to clean up the egg mess.

      He set the knife down carefully on the cutting board and frowned at her. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not allowed to ask how your brothers are doing these days?”

      She rose, her eyes hard, angry. “I will not let you do this to me, Slater. I can’t believe you have the gall to show up here after all these years and act like nothing happened.”

      While he was still trying to figure out how to answer that fierce statement, she shoved the paper towel in the garbage, then returned to cracking eggs with far more force than necessary.

      “My brothers are fine.” Her voice was as clipped as her movements. “Great. Jess is the police chief in Salt River. He and his fiancé are planning a late July wedding. Matt remarried a few months ago, and he and his new wife are deliriously happy together. She’s a vet in town and she’s absolutely perfect for him.”

      He wondered about the defiant lift to her chin as she said this, as if daring him to say something about it. “So he and—what was her name? Melanie, wasn’t it?—aren’t together anymore?”

      She didn’t say anything for several moments. At her continued silence, he looked up from the cutting board and saw with some shock that she was livid. Not just angry, but quaking with fury.

      The woman he’d known a decade ago rarely lost her temper, but when she did, it was a fierce and terrible thing. He only had a second to wonder what had sparked this sudden firestorm when she turned on him.

      “No, they’re not together anymore.” Her voice sounded as if it was coated with ground glass. “They haven’t been together since you ran off with her.”

      He blinked at the cold fury in her eyes. “Since I what?”

      She turned away from him. “I’m really not in the mood for this, Slater. I have too much to do this morning if I’m going to feed your guests.”

      His own temper began to spiral. “The hell with the guests. I want to know what you’re talking about. Why would you say I ran off with Melanie?”

      “Hmm. Let me think. Maybe because you did?”

      “The hell I did!”

      “Drop the innocent act, Zack. People saw you. Jesse saw you. The two of you were making out in the parking lot of the Renegade. There are variations on the story but from what numerous people told me, she was climbing all over you like the bitch in heat that she was, and you weren’t doing much to fight her off. Before Jess could beat the living daylights out of you, you and my darling ex-sister-in-law climbed into your truck and drove off into the sunset, never to be seen in Star Valley again.”

      His mind reeling, he scrambled to come up with something to say to that stunning accusation.

      Before he could think past the shock, the side door swung open and the teenager who had greeted him the day before with such dumbstruck inadequacy whirled in, tucking a T-shirt into her jeans as she came.

      “Sorry I’m late, Cassie. I slept through my alarm again.”

      The kitchen simmered with tension, with the fading echoes of her ridiculous claims. The idea that he would take up with that she-devil Melanie Harte was so ludicrous he didn’t know where to start defending himself.

      “No problem, Greta. You can take over for Mr. Slater. He was just leaving. Isn’t that right?” she challenged him, her lush mouth set into hard lines.

      He wanted to stay and have this out, to assure her he would rather have been hog-tied and dragged behind a pickup truck for a couple hundred

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