Renegade's Kiss by Barbara Ankrum

Author:Barbara Ankrum
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2016-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

She was killing him.

Jesse clamped five more roofing nails between his teeth and shoved the shingle into place on the barn roof.

Day in, day out, whenever he turned around, there Andi was, looking... well, the way she looked and doing things for him he had no business expecting and sure as hell didn't deserve. Every time he turned around, she was there, smiling at him, baking his favorite pie or meal, putting those damn, sweet-smelling roses all over his room.

Three weeks had passed since that disastrous dinner with Sam. Three weeks during which she'd managed to shut down every mangled attempt he'd made to steer her toward an eligible man. Calvin Weeks had "happened" by the next Sunday on the lame excuse of talking corn cribs and fodder with Jesse. Dressed in his Sunday best, with his hair slicked back with hands full of smelly tonic, Calvin had also, incidentally, brought along a bouquet of posies for Andrea which—with pleasant if puzzled thank you—she arranged in a glass vase, then left the two men to their talk of the animal feed market.

Calvin hadn't stayed for supper.

No, Andrea made it so plain she wasn't interested, not one of the men he'd steered toward her had dared even bring up the subject of the future. Not even the not-so-bad-looking beekeeper, Elias Mudrow, from the other side of the county, who'd come sniffing around her in town with honey under his fingernails and sparking on his mind.

Unfortunately, the beekeeper had more stock than charm. Mudrow had wound up with the honey-comb he'd tried to woo her with perched on his head.

The thought began to creep into Jesse's mind that this whole covert plan of his to find her a husband was fatally flawed from the get go.

He drove the nail home with two even strokes, spit another nail from his mouth, and pounded it in. The September sun poured over him on the shadeless roof. He welcomed the muggy heat. Maybe he could sweat out the tension that had settled between his shoulder blades like a fist.

Silas's hammer echoed the rhythm of his own from the other side of the roof. Giving the shingle a testing jiggle, Jesse reached for the next, his gaze drawn inexorably to the road which he'd been watching for the last hour, waiting for her return. She and Etta had gone to town in the buggy to do some Saturday shopping. Little Zach went along for the ride.

He pounded in another nail. He was worried for no good reason. Two women were safe enough, going the short distance between here and town, he told himself. Weren't they?

Then he thought of how she'd looked when she left—in that pretty midnight blue gown with all those rouches and tucks emphasizing the fullness of her breasts and the regained trimness of her waist. She'd worn that little navy straw hat with a cluster of fresh, bloodred roses tied to the brim, the only color in her outfit save her radiant skin, glowing with sunshine.

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