Michael didn’t miss how the men seemed to ignore Raymond Camanez when he stood. He was no longer their boss and every man on the ranch knew it.
The trouble was, Michael wasn’t sure he would be up for the job. He could ride and shoot fairly well, but he knew nothing about running a ranch.
He glanced at Cozette and saw a brush of fear shadow her eyes as well. If they didn’t pull this off, he didn’t want to think about what might happen.
Her hand was icy when he closed his fingers around hers and stood, pulling her up with him. “If you will excuse us, gentlemen, I’d like to take a few minutes to get reacquainted with my wife.”
They all laughed and mumbled low comments, but Michael didn’t care. “Let’s make this believable,” he said only for her to hear a moment before he swept her up.
“Good day, gentlemen!” He laughed as they shouted while he started toward the stairs.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder.
Lowering a kiss on her cheek, he whispered, “Which way?”
“Up,” she answered, her lips touching his. “All the way to the back of the hallway.”
A cheer went up from the men behind them and Michael paused on the steps long enough to finish the kiss she’d started. The rest of this job he’d signed on for might be frightening, but her lips tasted like heaven.
When he finally let her breathe, her cheeks were rose colored with embarrassment, but she smiled up at him. Without a word he carried her up and set her gently on her feet once they were out of sight of those below.
She moved to the waiting maid and gave instructions in a low tone. The maid nodded and hurried away without looking up at Michael.
When they were alone, Cozette opened the last door on the left of the hallway. “My uncle took the first room when he came here after my father had moved downstairs. It’s the biggest bedroom. He didn’t know that my parents’ rooms were always the last rooms.”
She walked into a warm room done in colors of the earth and bathed in sunshine. Michael didn’t want to act the fool, but he had a hard time keeping his mouth from dropping. He’d never seen such a room. Books lined two walls, and the view beyond the windowpanes seemed endless.
He glanced back at his uncles thundering up the stairs, Uncle Abe still eating. Before he could say anything, Cozette stepped in front of him and pointed. “Gentlemen, you’ll find your rooms being readied in the guesthouses off the garden.”
“We get a room?” Abe mumbled. “We’d be fine in the barn.”
“No,” she insisted. “You’re family now. I’ve asked for baths and fresh clothes to be sent to your rooms.”
“But . . .”
Michael didn’t know if they were thinking of the rule to never leave her, or dreading the bath, but he said, “I’ll watch over my wife, you three do as she says. We all could use a few hours of sleep.”
They weren’t about to argue with the woman who saved their lives. They all nodded and hurried back down the stairs.
Michael turned to her. “When I’m not close, I want one of them with you at all times. If for any reason I have to be gone, one will be sleeping in this hallway outside your door.”
She walked back into what had been her father’s room. “That’s not necessary.”
“I saw the way your uncle looked at us. I insist.”
“Already being bossy. I don’t like rules.”
Michael hesitated, feeling like he might step a foot too far in any direction and be in quicksand. “I’ll go along with however you want to play this except where your safety is concerned. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.” She moved to the windows, her black hair shining in the sunlight.
For the first time he thought he saw her relax a bit. She trusted him. It made no sense, but somehow he had the feeling that the only person for miles she believed in was him, the outlaw who tried to frighten her last night.
“This is not your room,” he guessed, for there was nothing feminine about the space.
“No,” she answered, opening a panel he thought might open into the hall. Only it led to a bathing room larger than most hotel rooms he’d seen. She crossed the tile and opened another door. “This is my room.” The end of the hallway had been closed in to connect