The Cowboy's Lady Read online

  But she couldn’t help feeling that when he rejected her food, he was rejecting her.

  Why do you care? After all…he’s a cowboy. You’re a city girl.

  Yet, as he left, Vivienne felt as if some vitality and energy had left the room with him.

  She brushed the silly feeling aside and turned back to the dirty pots and pans and dishes. She would be here until midnight cleaning up from a meal no one seemed to like. That was enough to make even the most experienced chef depressed.

  The next morning Cody stepped inside the cookhouse, his stomach growling so loud he was surprised it didn’t drown out the complaining he heard rumbling through the building. After he left the cookhouse last night, he’d gone straight to his own house. Bonnie was hiding out in her bedroom. So he satisfied himself with a meal of cold cereal while he paid the bills and balanced the checkbook.

  As a result, this morning, he was starving. But the sound of the griping going on in the cookhouse this morning made him want to pull his hat over his head and turn and leave.

  Then Dover stood up, his back to Cody, and looked around at the gathered men, his meaty hands on his hips. “Okay, so we drew straws to see who goes to talk to her. Cade, you drew short straw, so it’s your job.”

  “Give me a break, guys.” Cade Clayton held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t want her mad at me.”

  “C’mon. Young buck like you. Those shoulders. That Clayton blond hair,” Bryce teased, giving Cade’s belly a poke. “Rock-hard abs. What’s to be mad about? Besides, she’s your third or fourth cousin or something like that.”

  Cade gave him a wry look. “Second cousin. And on the other branch of the family tree.”

  “What’s going on?” Cody asked, hanging his jacket on the peg inside the door. As he walked across the wooden floor, his spurs jangled in the quiet.

  “Cade drew short straw. He’s gotta talk to his cousin Vivienne about her cooking,” Dover said, scratching his ample belly. “’Cause I tell you, what’s happened the last two meals isn’t workin’ for us.”

  Cody angled his chin toward the empty bowls scattered over the table. “What was for breakfast?”

  “Some kind of bread pudding,” Bryce put in.

  Cody groaned. What happened to the bacon and eggs he suggested?

  “Why don’t you talk to her,” Ted suggested. “She’ll listen to you.” His uncle lifted his eyebrows in a suggestive manner that made Cody clench his jaw.

  “Why do I have to go? You’re as much a partner as I am,” Cody said to his uncle Ted.

  Ted shrugged and then winked. “Your shoulders got way more pull than mine.”

  Cody nailed his uncle with a sharp look, but Ted wasn’t fazed.

  “I don’t have time for this malarkey,” Cody grumbled even as he marched to the kitchen door and shoved it open. Why couldn’t he get anyone on this place to listen to him?

  Vivienne stood by the sink, her hair pulled up, looking a lot less flushed than she did yesterday. She hummed a quiet tune, looking content and pleased with herself.

  Gold hoops dangled from her ears and she wore a silk scarf around her neck. Like she was all dressed up for something. Or someone. Then she turned and the smile on her face went straight to his gut.

  “Good morning, Cody. Is Bonnie coming to help me?” She angled her head to one side and gently brushed a strand of hair back from her face.

  “No.”

  Vivienne blew out her breath. “I thought—”

  Cody held up his hand. One problem at a time. “She’s finishing up homework she sloughed off last night. She has to get it done before the bus comes to get her.”

  “I see. Did you both have your breakfast?”

  He shook his head. “Bonnie doesn’t eat breakfast.”

  “What?” Vivienne looked horrified. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”

  Hearing her parrot the same words his mom had always said to him gave him a momentary feeling of nostalgia. He waved off her comment.

  “Maybe, but I’m not getting into that fight with her,” he said. He had to save his ammunition for bigger battles. Like trying to find a way to spend quality time with his sister, getting his work done and keeping her away from the single cowboys on this ranch.

  Once again he wished his parents had sent his sister somewhere else. He didn’t have time to take care of her properly.

  “Did you have breakfast?” Vivienne asked.

  “Just got here in time to hear the men grumbling. Again. About the food you made.”

  Her smile dropped away into a frown and he felt like smacking himself on the head. That came out all wrong, but something about her tangled his thoughts, which plugged up his conversational filter.

  “What could the men possibly be groping about now?” she said. “I made a simple breakfast, like you told me. Bread pudding, of all things.” She balled her hands into fists and dropped them onto her hips. “Those ungrateful louses. I spent a lot of time on that breakfast.”

  “From the sounds of their grumbling, you might have been better off with porridge packs.”

  “Porridge packs? What are you talking about?”

  Cody shook his head, trying to comprehend the fact that this fancy, New York chef didn’t understand one of the staples of breakfast out on the trail. “You boil the water. You rip open the porridge packet. You put the two together in a bowl. Stir and eat.”

  Vivienne made a face as if he had suggested she use mud. “You can’t be serious. I actually know which ingredients go into the food I cook. None of that butylated hydroxytoluene added to packaging material to preserve freshness.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Vivienne held up her hand. “Work joke.”

  “What I am serious about is you doing what I ask. You’ve cooked two meals for my guys, and both times they’ve bombed. Even old Stimpy Stevens didn’t have that bad a track record.”

  Vivienne pulled back as if he had hit her. “But…I…” She pressed her lips together and turned away.

  “I want you to make up a menu and bring it over tomorrow. That way we can figure out what you can make that would keep my hands happy.”

  Then the door opened behind him.

  “Did you tell her, boss?” Dover said in a stage whisper.

  Cody shot a look over his shoulder. All he saw of Dover was his head poking through the door, his grizzled cheeks glinting in the light from the kitchen. Then, another head appeared above him. Grady. “Did you ask her if there’s more?” Grady asked, also whispering.

  “More? What are you talking about?” Cody asked, genuinely puzzled.

  The door opened farther and Cody could see the men gathered behind Dover and Grady, their hats in their hands. They looked like a bunch of schoolboys with a crush on their teacher.

  “What is going on?” Cody’s gaze flicked from his men, then back to Vivienne, who looked as befuddled as he was.

  Then Cade lurched forward, as if pushed.

  “Can I help you, Cade?” Vivienne asked, bracing herself for more criticism.

  Cade shot Cody a pleading look, then cleared his throat in a nervous gesture. “The guys asked me to talk to you about the food. About you making more.”

  Cody and Vivienne spoke at the same time. “What?”

  “Yeah. It was great. I’ve never tasted bread pudding that was so good,” Cade was saying. “But there wasn’t enough. I really wanted seconds, but there wasn’t any left over.”

  “I wanted seconds, too,” Dover put in.

  “What you wanted was thirds,” Grady said, giving him a light shove.

  Dover shrugged, then licked his lips as if remembering that second helping of breakfast.

  “So that was the only problem this morning?” Vivienne asked.

  They all nodded.

  “Was that also what you characters were bellyaching about last night?” Cody asked.

  “Our bellies ached all right,” Dover said, rubbing his ample stomach. �
�Only ’cause they were still empty. I could have eaten a dozen of those round things. What were they?”

  “Savory stuffing balls.” Again Cody and Vivienne spoke at the same time.

  Cody shook his head as if trying to settle his confusion. He thought the guys were griping about the cooking, but instead their biggest complaint was how much she had made?

  “Supper was great, Vivienne,” his uncle Ted said, moving into the kitchen. “But we came back from a long, hard day of work. Those little hens and those few ball things just didn’t do the job. And the pudding this morning… I never thought you could make plain ordinary bread taste so good.” He sighed. “But again, not enough to hold these guys for a long day in the saddle. Especially when all they get for lunch is energy bars.” Ted angled Cody a sharp look.

  Cody ignored his uncle the same way as he’d been ignored a few moments ago, then he glanced at Vivienne beside him, her carefully manicured fingers pressed to her lips.

  “You guys like the food,” she said, as if she didn’t believe it herself.

  “Yeah. It’s great, just not enough.”

  She released a relieved laugh. “I apologize,” she said quietly. “I’m so accustomed to New York portions. I can definitely increase the quantity if that’s the only difficulty.”

  “Is there any more of that bread stuff?” Bryce asked, stepping forward, holding his trucker cap in both hands. “We’re all still hungry.”

  Vivienne glanced at Cody. “If you can spare your men for another half an hour, I can make some more.”

  Cody bit his lip, debating. “I wanted to be up in the hills before the cattle start moving around too much. And the horses need to be saddled up. Can’t you just give them toast?”

  The collective groan from the men told him that toast wouldn’t cut it. And he knew if he didn’t give in on this the day ahead would be one long whine-fest.

  One of these days they had to have a meeting about who was the boss around here. He turned back to Vivienne. “So, you can make more of that bread pudding quick enough to feed these men of mine and get us on our way before the cows decide to head over the pass?” He tossed a quick glare over his shoulder to remind the men of the real reason they were here. To work.

  “I can, but I can have it done faster if I have help,” Vivienne said with a shrug.

  And Bonnie was heading out for school in twenty minutes.

  His uncle Ted stepped forward, hitching up his pants. “You stay here and help Vivienne, Cody. I’ll take the men out and get the horses ready. They can be tied up while we eat and then we’ll be out the door with hardly any time wasted.”

  And before Cody could protest this plan, Uncle Ted herded the men out the door with promises of more food when they came back.

  Cody watched them go, stifling his irritation with his uncle. Why did he have the feeling he’d been railroaded?

  Chapter Five

  “You don’t have to peel the apples, just cut them. Like this.” Vivienne took a knife she had recently sharpened and demonstrated. The knife flashed and in a few seconds a pile of cut-up pieces of apple lay on the cutting board.

  “I can’t do it that fast,” Cody protested, taking the knife from her.

  As they did, their hands brushed, and Vivienne had to force herself not to yank her hand back. No unexpected movements around sharp knives, she could hear her cooking instructor say.

  “You only need to cut up a few apples,” Vivienne said, puzzled at the breathless note in her voice. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt fully aware of every move Cody made. His height. The breadth of his shoulders.

  The way his mouth puckered up when he was thinking.

  She had wanted to protest when Ted had made his plan, but some strange part of her didn’t mind having Cody Jameson in her kitchen, standing beside her.

  She measured out the milk, frowning at the amount she had left. “I’ll need to get more groceries if I’m cooking larger quantities of food.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Trouble is, my car badly needs an oil change, and there’s something wrong with the brakes.”

  She really needed a new car, but that would have to wait. For now, as long as this car could be doctored, she could limp along with it for the next while.

  “Bring it to Art’s,” Cody said. “I’m headed to that part of town in a couple of days, and I can take you back if the car isn’t done on time.”

  “Okay.” She beat some more eggs and added the milk, trying to stifle her awareness of Cody standing beside her, still patiently cutting the apples.

  “Just a question,” she asked. “How do I pay for the groceries?”

  Cody shot her a frown. “How did you pay for the food you bought before?”

  “I put it on my credit card.”

  “Let me know how much it was and I’ll pay you back.” Cody handed her the cutting board with the apples on it. “Do you have the bills yet?”

  “I threw them away. I suppose you’d need the bills for tax purposes.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then just leave it. Chalk it up to a lesson learned,” she said, adding spices to the milk-and-egg mixture. “When I own my restaurant, I’ll have to be more businesslike.”

  “That what you want to do with the money from your grandpa George?” Cody asked, rinsing off the knife and dropping it in the knife block.

  Vivienne nodded, her lips curving up in a smile as her mind easily slipped back to her plans and dreams. “It’s what I wanted to do since I graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.”

  “What kind of restaurant would you run, and…what else do you want me to do?”

  “Can you cut the crusts of the bread off and then slice it into cubes?” She pointed to the loaf on the counter. “As for the restaurant, I don’t have a vision or theme yet, other than fine dining.”

  “So, no grilled cheese sandwiches on your menu?” Cody said, snagging the plastic bag holding the bread.

  Vivienne smiled at his attempt at a joke, recognizing it as a small olive branch. “If there were, they’d be gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. With dill sauce and roasted red peppers and caciocavallo podolico cheese.”

  “I’m guessing that’s not cheddar,” Cody said, giving her a quick grin as he ripped open the bread bag.

  His smile distracted her from his ruining a perfectly good plastic bag. “It’s Italian,” Vivienne replied. “Made from the milk of free-range cows. And it costs five hundred dollars a pound.”

  “I’d suggest leaving that off the menu.” Cody grabbed another knife from the block and started cutting. Vivienne added a few more spices to the egg mixture and turned the oven on. She got out another baking pan for the bread pudding and greased it up with butter. The kitchen was well stocked with pans, bowls and containers.

  “What can I do now?” Cody asked when he was finished.

  “Just give me the bread and I’ll soak it in the egg mixture and then grate cinnamon over top.”

  She reached for the bowl and endured a moment of awkwardness as he handed it to her. Once again she caught herself far too aware of him.

  As she mixed the bread cubes into the milk mixture she shook her reaction off, blaming it on her lonely single state.

  During her focused climb up the career ladder, she had a few boyfriends, and the one guy she’d become serious about had dumped her. So she maintained her focus, her mother’s mantra pounding in her head.

  Take care of yourself, because no man will.

  So she had. But all that taking care of herself had come at a cost. And where had all that self-discipline gotten her?

  Stuck out on a ranch, making gourmet bread pudding, hoping and, yes, praying her cousins Mei and Lucas would come home, as well, to fulfill the terms of Grandpa George’s will. If they didn’t all come, this work and sacrifice was for nothing.

  And even if she did get the money and could start up a restaurant, then what? Go back to New York. Start the restaurant. Alone.

  Vivie
nne yanked a cinnamon stick out of the jar and grated it over the pudding, her movements quick and harsh. Shouldn’t matter. Take care of yourself.

  “Slow down there,” Cody warned, frowning at her. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, her fears and frustrations spilling out into her actions. Then her finger slipped and her knuckles slammed against the grater, the force of her movement slashing the skin off two knuckles.

  She sucked in a breath and pulled her hand close to her.

  “Careful,” Cody said, grabbing her hand and holding it away from her as blood streamed down her fingers onto the cuff of her sweater. He pulled her along behind him. “Come over to the sink.”

  He turned on the tap and pulled her hand underneath the stream of water. The cold water stung, and Vivienne winced as he carefully washed the blood away. “Do you know where the first-aid kit is?” he asked.

  She shook her head, biting her lip against the burning pain, watching the water running over her finger.

  “Just stay here. I’ll be right back.” Cody spun away.

  She was about to pull her hand away from the water when he returned with the first-aid kit. “Found it,” he said, setting the tin on the butcher-block counter beside her. He turned the water off and caught her hand once again, his callused fingers rough against her skin.

  “It’s okay,” she said, tugging her hand back. “I can take care of this.”

  “Not really,” he muttered, dabbing at her knuckles with a clean towel. “Hold still and I’ll get this bandaged up.” He whistled as the blood kept flowing. “You really did a number on those knuckles,” he said, opening up the emergency kit with one hand. “Press this against your fingers while I try to get these bandage packages open.”

  Vivienne did as he said, hot flashes of pain stabbing her hand. “I feel like such a sissy,” she said, wincing. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “Those hurt the most,” he said as he ripped open a package of gauze. “All your nerves are just below the surface of your skin, so you feel every scrape.” He took her hand once again, his movements gentle as he peeled away the now-red towel. Then he bent over her, his head so close to hers she could see the wave in his hair, the fine lines fanning away from his eyes, white from squinting against the sun all summer.