The Cowboy's Temptation Page 0,30
explained. “I noticed you weren’t thrilled with the ride. Do you not like flying?”
Elissa shook her head. “It’s not that. I’ve just never been in one before and it wasn’t like being in a plane. It might take a little getting used to,” she said. “Want to learn to fly it?” he asked.
Elissa turned her head and looked at his face, trying to determine if he was serious. “You would teach me how to fly after my initial horseback riding lesson? I can tell you I know less about flying helicopters than I do riding horses.”
Jake dropped his head back onto the plastic chair. “God help me, then.”
Elissa laughed at his pained expression. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
She heard his chest rumble in laughter. “Darlin’, you were almost going backwards,” he joked.
“I did not,” she contradicted. “Just around in circles…I think.”
Jake’s laughter was contagious and she found herself in his arms, laughing at the memory of her first riding lesson.
Three days later, the babies and Veronica were released from the hospital and life was slowly coming down to a routine for everyone again. Jake dragged himself into the kitchen, wondering what he would find to eat. He was disappointed that the lavish feasts he had gotten used to over the past two weeks were at an end now that Ronnie was in the hospital. The thought of slapping together a sandwich almost discouraged him enough to ignore the pain of hunger digging in his stomach. But then he realized he might as well get used to it. He wasn’t likely to get anything more.
With a deep sigh, he opened the steel door of the refrigerator and peered inside.
He had to blink to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him. He was bone tired and so hungry he could eat the stuffing out of one of the sofa pillows so he didn’t trust that his eyes were really seeing good food. Was that really another plate full of home cooked food?
He tentatively reached for the plate, waiting for the mirage to disappear. Sure enough, it was real. The plastic wrap covering the pot pie crinkled slightly with his touch.
He pulled the large bowl out of the refrigerator and took a sniff, suspecting this might be a leftover from months ago when he’d had a temporary cook help out. Bracing himself, he lifted the wrapping and took a cautious sniff. Surprisingly, it didn’t repulse him. In fact, it made his mouth start salivating. The odors coming from the bowl were carrots, celery, chicken and some spices he couldn’t identify. Pulling the bowl out, he looked around the kitchen, waiting for someone to pounce on him for stealing their meal.
Who in the world made this? A slender, sexy brunette popped into his mind but he quickly dismissed Elissa as the cook. She’d already admitted that she’d ordered most of her meals from restaurants while in New York so he had assumed she didn’t like to cook.
He heated the pot pie up in the microwave oven, then carried the meal to the family room, taking a seat on the large leather sofa to savor his meal. But as soon as he sat down, another smell wafted to his nose.
Was that lemon?
What in the world would smell like lemon? Jake looked around the room and noticed subtle changes. The windows were cleaned of dust, the furniture was polished to a high gloss and the cream and brown area rug covering the well beaten wood floors was freshly vacuumed. Who in the world had cleaned his house? This room hadn’t had a good cleaning for almost six months but now it was smelling like lemon furniture polish and vanilla. Again, Elissa’s image popped into his mind but he quickly dismissed it again as a possibility. She didn’t seem like the type to get down and dirty cleaning someone else’s house.
He reminded himself that he had misjudged her several times already. He had assumed that Ronny’s friend would be a spoiled, New York City gal that couldn’t do anything for herself, preferring to be waited on hand and foot.
Besides the first three days after she’d arrived, she hadn’t asked anyone to do anything for her that he knew of. And she was always up right after he left the house. He knew that because he watched for her from the barn. Jake had tried for a few days to ignore his mind’s pull to watch her graceful form as she walked around the ranch, but