The Rancher and the Heiress by Susan Meier

Author:Susan Meier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Alexis, your mother’s on the phone.”

Sitting under the umbrella-covered redwood table, Alexis peered up from the draft copy she was reading. Cal stood in the opening for the sliding glass door, looking both ruggedly handsome and yet somehow domesticated with Terry stuck to his hip. Though Terry wore bright plaid shorts and Cal’s long, lean legs were encased in denim, both wore white T-shirts. But where Terry’s was “little-boy” loose, Cal’s tightly hugged his well-muscled chest.

Noticing Cal’s long legs first, then the blastedly snug fit of his shirt caused Alexis’s pulse to scramble. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d told her the night before. She simply didn’t know how to treat Cal, and she was even less sure of how to curb her own emotions. No one ever made her feel the way Cal did when he kissed her. Not because of the tingles, the excitement or even the instant arousal. The security, the comfort level was what she didn’t understand. A rational woman couldn’t feel secure with a man who wouldn’t commit—and that was the real bottom line to his explanation. He might find her sexually attractive, he might even like her, but there was no way he would ever commit himself again.

“My mother?” she said, bringing herself back to the much safer present. She was astounded that her mother had called the ranch, but it was also odd that Cal didn’t seem put off about speaking with Angus’s wayward daughter as Alexis thought he might have been.

She took the portable phone from Cal’s hands. “Mom?”

“How are you, dear?”

“Well, I’m fine,” Alexis said cheerfully, still so astonished by her mother’s call that she hadn’t yet figured out there must be a reason for it. When she did make that connection, she felt all the blood drain from her face. “How are you? Is something wrong?” she asked in a rush.

Her mother laughed. “No. Nothing’s wrong. I was worried about you. You couldn’t hide your concern for Terry yesterday and, frankly, it troubled me. I need to hear that you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Alexis said pragmatically, then she sighed. “Unless you count the fact that I haven’t had an actual productive day in a week and I’m working toward a deadline with the new Diet Splash campaign.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I have an idea. I know I have an idea. I just can’t seem to stimulate it into making itself known.”

“Writer’s block?”

“No, this is worse. It’s like my subconscious has already figured out the whole campaign and the idea is sitting on the edge of my brain. But I can’t push the right button to have the actual thought, and my subconscious is laughing at me.”

“You’re working too hard,” Rachel said, chuckling.

With everything that had happened to her lately, Alexis couldn’t have agreed more. Even forgetting her feelings for Cal, her life was a mess. “That’s exactly what I think. I was up until four o‘clock this morning, doing everything from free-fall writing to handstands, trying to nudge the idea loose and nothing helped.

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