Hurriedly Carla tasted the tomato sauce, added more garlic and checked the spaghetti water again. Nothing doing. The outside door into the dining room squeaked open and then closed. The room, which adjoined the kitchen, was more like a mess hall than a formal dining room. There were two long tables, each of which could seat ten comfortably and fourteen in a pinch, twenty chairs, a wall of floor-to-ceiling cupboards and not much else.

It occurred to Carla that the tables were bare of plates, cups, utensils and napkins, not to mention salt, pepper, ketchup, steak sauce, sugar and all the other condiments beloved by ranch hands. Groaning at her forgetfulness, she dumped the half-cooked onions and bacon into the pot of green beans and frantically began opening cupboards, searching for plates. She was so busy that she didn’t hear the door between the kitchen and dining room open.

"Smells good in here. What’s for supper?"

"Spaghetti," Carla said without turning toward the male voice.

"Smells more like cherry pie."

"Ohmygod, dessert."

She raced past the man who had walked into the kitchen. A fast look in the oven assured her that the cobbler had survived her neglect. All she had to do was maneuver the big pan out of the oven to let the cobbler cool. The kitchen towel wouldn’t stretch to do the job of handling the pan.

"Pot holders," she muttered, straightening from bending over the oven.

"Looks like cobbler from here."

The voice came from about a foot away from Car-la’s ear. Her head snapped around and she looked at the man for the first time.

Long, lean and deceptively lazy-looking, Tennessee Blackthorn was watching Carla with an odd smile on his face.

"Ten! Is it really you?" Carla asked, delighted. "The last time I heard, you had a phone call in the middle of the night, went into Cortez and never came back."

"Never is a long time." Smoke-colored eyes swept appreciatively from Carla’s oven-flushed cheeks to her ankles and back up. "Guess we can’t call you nina anymore. You finally grew into those long legs and bedroom eyes."

She laughed. "I love hungry men. They’ll flatter the cook shamelessly in hopes of an early dinner. You’re out of luck, though. The watched pot isn’t boiling."

"He’s out of luck, period," Luke said from the back door, his voice cold.

5

Carla didn’t realize how much her expression changed when she turned toward Luke, but little escaped Ten’s eyes. He measured the complex mixture of yearning and distance, hope and hunger in her look, and he knew that nothing had changed.

"Still chasing moonlight over black water, aren’t you?" he asked softly.

If either Carla or Luke heard, neither answered. They were looking at each other as though it had been years, not hours, since their last meeting.

"The pot holders are over there," Luke said in a clipped voice, gesturing toward a drawer near the stove, never looking away from Carla’s vivid blue-green eyes.

"Pot holders," Carla repeated, absorbed by the arching line of Luke’s eyebrows, the clean curves of his mouth, the shadow of beard lying beneath his tanned skin.

"Pot holders," repeated Luke.

"Still smells and looks like cobbler to me," Ten said to no one in particular.

"Don’t you have something to do?" Luke asked pointedly, finally looking away from Carla.

"Nope. But if you give me a cup of coffee I’ll find something."

Luke eyed the man who was both his friend and the ramrod of the Rocking M. Ten returned him stare for stare…and smiled. Luke barely controlled his anger. He knew he had no reason to be angry with Ten; of all the ranch hands, the ramrod would be the least likely to hustle Carla into bed. But hearing Ten talk about Carla’s long legs and bedroom eyes had made Luke savagely angry. The fact that his anger was irrational, and he knew it, only made him more angry.

"Coffee?" Carla asked, feeling a sinking in her stomach. "I forgot to make coffee!"

"How the hell can you forget coffee?" Luke demanded, turning on Carla, glad to find a rational outlet for his anger. "Any ranch cook worth the powder to blow her straight to hell knows that the first thing you make in the morning is coffee and the last thing you clean at night is the coffeepot!"

"Well," drawled Ten, "I guess that sure settles that. Carla isn’t a ranch cook and we’re going to starve to death opening cans with our pocketknives. Sure you wouldn’t like to think it over, boss? Wouldn’t want you to go off half-cocked and shoot yourself in the foot."

Luke said something under his breath that made Carla wince. She turned away and began searching through cupboards with hands that shook. All she found was peanut butter, jelly and a jar of pickled jalapeno peppers. She grabbed the jar and shoved it into Luke’s hand.

"Here. Suck on one of those. It will cool you off."

Ten’s laughter filled the kitchen. Luke slammed the jar back onto the shelf and gave Carla a narrow-eyed look.

"Listen, schoolgirl. This is the real world where men work hard and get hungry. I said dinner at six and I meant it. If you’re too immature to get the job done I’ll find a woman who can."

Luke turned and left the kitchen before Carla could answer. Not that she had anything to say; she hadn’t heard Luke so cold and cutting since the night three years ago when he had told her that she wasn’t woman enough to love a man.

"Hey," Ten said gently, "don’t take the boss seriously. He’s just upset about that black mare of his. She’s going downhill fast and the vet can’t figure out why."

Carla made a neutral sound and kept on searching the cupboards. She found nothing useful. Part of the problem was that she was fighting against tears. The rest of the problem was that she wanted to throw things.

"Is that big pot boiling yet?" she asked tightly.

Ten lifted the lid. "Nope."

"Closer."

"Nope. I’ll tell the men to take their time washing up."

"Thanks."

Carla finally found the pot holders, retrieved the cobbler and set it aside to cool. While looking for the pot holders she also found the coffeepot. Like everything else in the kitchen, the pot was oversize. It quite literally made gallons of coffee at a time. She filled everything, putting in twice the coffee any sane person would have wanted, and thumped the pot onto the stove to perk.

By the time she lit the burner under the coffee, the spaghetti water was showing vague signs of life. With a heartfelt prayer she slammed the lid back in place and resumed searching the cupboards for plates.

"What are you looking for?" Ten asked from the doorway.

"Plates," Carla said despairingly, shutting another cupboard door with more force than necessary.

"They’re in the mess hall, along with knives, forks, spoons and all the rest"

She flashed him a grateful smile. "Thanks."

Ten shook his head as Carla rushed past him, all but running. "Slow down, nina. The men won’t starve if they have to wait a bit for chow."

"Tell Luke."

"All right."

Carla grabbed Ten’s arm as he headed through the kitchen toward Luke’s office at the other end of the house.

"I was just kidding," she said quickly.

"I wasn’t" Ten looked down at Carla’s unhappy face and shook his head. "You haven’t been here two hours and already you look like somebody rode you hard and put you away wet. Have you tried telling Luke how you feel?"

"The first day on a job is always tough."

Ten made an impatient sound. "That’s not what I meant Have you told Luke that you’re in love with him?"

For an instant Carla felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath her feet. She tried to speak. No words came. Red flooded her face.

Ten sighed. "Hell, Carla. There isn’t a man on this place who doesn’t know it, except maybe Luke. Don’t you think it’s time you told him?"

Her lips trembled as she thought about a night three years ago. She licked her dry lips and said carefully, "He knows."

Ten said something harsh beneath his breath, took off his hat and raked his fingers through his black hair. After a moment he sighed and said, "It’s none of my business, but damn it, I hate seeing anything as gentle as you get hurt. Chasing something that doesn’t want to be caught can be real painful."

"That’s not…" Carla’s voice faded. "That’s not why I’m here. I came to cure myself of loving…of my childish infatuation…" She swallowed twice and tried again, holding her voice steady with an effort. "I think Luke must have guessed why I’m here, so he’s doing everything he can to help the process along."

It was Ten’s turn to be speechless. He shook his head and turned away, swearing softly. As an afterthought he added, "I’ll set the table."

"Thank you, Ten. I’ll be more together tomorrow, I promise." Silently Carla added, I’ve got to be. I can’t spend the summer holding my breath, feeling my heart beat like a wild bird in a net, listening, listening, listening for Luke’s footsteps, his voice, his laughter.

The rattle of the lid against the pot of spaghetti water jarred Carla from her unhappy reverie. The water was boiling energetically. She added salt and oil and began ripping apart packages of pasta. By the time the last package went in, the water was back to lying motionless in the pot. Anxiously she looked at the big kitchen clock. Six-twenty.

At least the vegetable part of the meal was ready. It was only canned green beans, but the bacon and onion gave the limp beans a whiff of flavor. Carla would have felt better if she had had a few loaves of garlic bread to put out on the table as well, but there was no help for it. Pasta, meat sauce, green beans and cobbler were all that was available. And she didn’t even have that. Not yet.